The Things We Do For Love
by Nightmare Prince
Summary: They were happy. They were whole. They should have known it was too good to be true. It began with a murder of one, and it culminated in the rise of one of the most notorious serial killers to walk the streets of England since Jack the Ripper was at large. To think, though, that it all began with a bitter heart, a bottle of bourbon, and a very, very sharp knife. [Murder Mystery]
1. Day of the Dead

**The Things We Do For Love**

For as long as he could remember, Louis Weasley had found birthdays boring. It was just another day, as far as he was concerned, with the only difference being he was now a year closer to being a senior citizen. Not that he had anything against the elderly – his grandparents were lovely people – but he'd prefer remaining youthful and wrinkle free forever.

Still, there wasn't any denying that today was rather significant. Turning seventeen symbolised that he was now, legally, an adult in the eyes of the wizarding world, which of course translated into him being able to do all the things he'd been doing since he was fourteen – only now, he wouldn't get in trouble for it. Then again, the Veela charm he'd inherited from his mother had been quite the asset in that regard, granting him the guile to charm his way into almost any club, bar, or pub he'd wanted to. He sighed – try as he might, he wasn't able to convince himself that today warranted any special celebrations.

Through the window, he could see his brother-in-law, Teddy Lupin, directing lengths of sparkling streamers through the trees with his wand. A few strings of fairy lights lay at the older man's feet, glimmering despite the bright afternoon sun, for unlike the Muggle contraptions Grandpa Arthur kept in his shed, these lights housed real fairies. Vain creatures, thought Louis, and he wondered why it was that his mother had been so set on using the theme of Mardi Gras for his birthday.

Oh, perhaps it had been his talk of wanting to travel to New Orleans to experience it. The woman was a quite determined to keep him around as long as possible, citing, with reason, that once his job application with the Daily Prophet came through – and it would come through, since nobody denied a Weasley anything these days – he'd be spending months away at a time in various exotic locations covering world events.

He sighed, propping his feet up on the coffee table and folding his arms behind his head. At least he'd get presents, he reasoned, and the fuss would be worth it. Maybe his parents had finally got him the new _Starfyre 3000_ racing broom – it would really increase his odds at catching the Snitch. Though, now that he'd graduated Hogwarts, he wasn't really sure when that would be much of an issue since, unlike his cousin, Lily, he had no intention of playing Quidditch at a professional level.

Once again, he turned to look out the window, ignoring the aroma of gumbo from the kitchen – well, you had to give the woman credit for keeping to the theme to such an extent – and had to hold back a snort of laughter. Dominique's fiancé, Richard Sparx, seemed quite out of his element as watched, jaw hanging open, as Victoire flicked her wand and transfigured a handful of twigs into tables and chairs.

Poor Muggle – well, he'd have to get used to it sooner or later. It was always the case when the magical community decided to wed those of the non-magical persuasion. Whilst not as much of a taboo as it had been in the days of his grandparents' youth, it was still not a very common occurrence. Louis thought it for the best, truth be told, because, despite the fact that they were all people, they were still from two different worlds.

It was an unpopular opinion to have, and he was happy for his sister, but he wasn't very keen on having someone in the family ogle him whenever he whipped out his wand.

"Well, don't you look ecstatic," said a soft, feminine voice and he jumped. He hadn't even heard the roar of the Floo, which was never a good thing when you lived in such a large family. Anyone could just wander in, and without sharp ears, there was always the danger of being caught in strange and compromising positions.

He, at the very least, had ditched the habit fairly early, though not before he'd gone to visit Victoire and Teddy and, to his chagrin, stumbled upon them practicing for their first child. Well, if there was any joy in that situation, he reasoned, it was that his sister was now sporting a large bump beneath her sweater.

Perhaps they'd name him Godfather thanks to his role in the whole affair.

"This is my happy face," he said, as he cringed at the memory. His cousin chuckled before plopping down beside him on the loveseat and unabashedly extending her legs over his lap. He rolled his eyes in response but didn't say anything, as it wouldn't do much good. Lily had always had a way with making herself at home no matter where she went.

"More like your resting bitch face, but I'll take what I can get."

"You have a way with words, you know that, right?"

Lily laughed, and then said, "Happy birthday, Louis." Leaning back into the couch, he forced a smile and thanked her. She was being nice, after all. They all were – the fact that he was indifferent towards birthdays didn't make him oblivious to that fact, and so, despite his personal feelings on the subject, he could very well pretend to be enjoying himself.

Thankfully, conversation soon turned to the more pressing issues of their lives, namely his relationship with whoever had struck his fancy for this particular week, and her engagement to Scorpius Malfoy. Whilst many of their relatives had been more than a little perturbed by the fact that Lily's fiancé was also her brother-in-law, Louis himself had never been that bothered by the development. After all, love was love, and he'd fought enough of his own battles when he'd come out of the closet. You couldn't really help who you fell for, and despite the way it looked on paper, there were no blood ties between the Malfoys and Potters to actually constitute incest.

Well, to be honest, there was that bit about them both being descended from the House of Black, but please, you couldn't throw a stone in Diagon without hitting at least a dozen descendants of the Blacks. Hell, Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny were distant cousins, as were Nana Molly and Grandpa Arthur, to say nothing of Teddy and Victoire.

Their conversation wore on into the late afternoon, with more and more of his friends and family popping through the fireplace or Apparating directly into the yard – which had led to a fairly amusing moment when Fred and Olivia had caused Richard to scream like a strangled pixie by appearing out of thin air directly in front of him. As more of his cousins found their way to the living room, it became downright claustrophobic, not that it was any of their faults. The house his parents had bought when he was three may be bigger than Shell Cottage, but it was nowhere near large enough to house the entire Weasley-Potter-Lupin-Malfoy-Longbottom-Scamander- Assorted Others Clan.

Excusing himself, Louis walked to the front porch, wrinkling his nose at the acrid smell of smoke filling the air. True to form, his cousin, James, was leaning against the railings, a cigarette between his lips, chatting in a hushed voice with Rohan Thomas, Molly's husband, and Lorcan Scamander. He was about to join them when a piercing voice filled the air.

"James," screeched Aunt Audrey, climbing up the porch stairs with fire in her eyes. "Didn't I tell you at your last screening that you were not to smoke or drink?"

"You did, but I didn't listen," replied James, raising the bottle of beer in his hand up as if to toast his aunt, which Lorcan seemed to find very amusing. For his part, Louis didn't really see it. His aunt was a gentle creature, but absolutely terrifying when riled, and boasted a temper so fierce that it was hard to remember she'd married into the family and not been born into it.

"I swear, boy," muttered Audrey, glaring daggers as Uncle Percy guided her into the house before further sparks could fly. "It's as if you're asking to die."

 **.o0o.**

James was in a bad mood.

In fact, he half considered flipping his aunt the bird as she was coaxed – more like forced, based on how Rohan and Uncle Percy were grasping her arms – but decided not to. It would cause a lot more hassle than it was worth, and everyone would just spend the evening staring at him as if he was a bomb about to go off.

Sourly, he brought his beer to his lips and took a hearty swig. Contrary to popular belief, he was not made of glass to break at the slightest provocation, and nor was he made of paper so as to tear at the smallest strain. He'd do what he liked, when he liked and damn the rest of them for trying to stop him living.

Most of them just wanted to lock him away in a padded room at St. Mungo's, bloody vultures.

"You alright, mate?" Louis came up beside him and laid a hand against his arm, and for once, James didn't snap at him. For whatever reason, Louis was one of the few people who spoke to him as if he were just any other person, and that was in short supply with this family.

Which was a bit rich given that there were about three or four trained Healers scattered about their convoluted tree.

"I'll live," he replied, frowning out across the garden.

"I don't doubt it," said Louis, flicking his wand and summoning a bottle of beer for himself. Popping the lid against the railing, he continued, "I'll not say she means well because the problem with these people is that they all mean well a bit too much."

"Not having the best day either then, mate?" James chuckled, his ire disappearing somewhat.

"You know what they say, boys," interjected Lorcan, who until that point had been silent, which James was thankful for. The other man was good company, but he'd inherited a bit too much of his mother's quirkiness to really be comforting in times when James simply wanted the whole world to die. Maybe that was a little extreme, he thought, but he sure as hell felt like it should, sometimes.

"What do they say?" asked Louis, obviously amused, as the two of them shared a look about their cousin-in-law's quirkiness.

"Just relax and accept the crazy, because it isn't going anywhere."

Once again, James and Louis exchanged glances, though this time, he could detect the hint of pity in his cousin's eyes. The comment rankled, but he laughed politely, no matter how uncomfortable it made him. Lorcan had always had a propensity to say things without properly considering their implications, and this time, he'd unwittingly hit a little closer to home than he should.

Without meaning to, James felt his free hand slip down to his coat pocket and finger the vials concealed within. The odourless, colourless potion within seemed to heat at his touch, and he frowned, fumbling around until he was able to extricate another cigarette from his pocket.

He wasn't supposed to be smoking, truth be told, but just like with alcohol, he found it to be a welcome distraction. Idle hands led to idle thoughts, and that was something he could not abide, for fear that it would lead to the self-pity that had haunted him for years.

No, he was fine, and he would not let a few offhand remarks make him feel sorry for himself. Unlike a lot of his relatives, he knew Lorcan hadn't meant what he said, and so, with a deep breath, he forced himself to break the terse silence.

"So, Lorcan, how was the trip to Bulgaria?"

"It was fun," he replied, "Though, I haven't made much headway with my paper on Veela reproductive cycles. They're a bit territorial, honestly, and their charm makes it quite difficult to get close enough to observe them."

James nodded politely, having stopped paying attention at that point. It was one thing to be entertained by the Scamanders when they were going on about the creatures that filled their imaginations, but it was another to listen to them drone about actual creatures. He was broken from his stupor, however, by a loud spluttering to his left, and he had to bite his lip to keep from laughing when he realised what was being said.

"I'm less than a quarter of a Veela, Lorcan. I don't think my sex life is going to have much in common with my purebred cousins."

"Still," pressed Lorcan, "I can compare this to my findings to see if there's a link. I can't believe I hadn't thought about this before. Tell me, when you reach orgasm, is it more or less than the average human male?"

Louis turned redder than a tomato, and James, stifling laughter, decided that as much as he would like to rescue his cousin, he'd best just make himself scarce. Taking his leave, he cleared the steps in a single hop and strolled around to the back garden, pausing only to wink at his cousin's spluttering face before losing sight of them both.

"He left the office early, I swear. I don't know where he's at."

James paused, recognizing Rose's voice. He looked around, but didn't see her, and it was then that he heard another familiar voice, laced with worry.

"He told Lily he'd meet her here straight after work. When have you ever known him to be late to anything where she's concerned?"

"Maybe he just lost track of time, Cass. Have you asked your parents? You know how he and Draco are, get them talking about work and they lose track of time."

"Mother said that he hasn't been home all afternoon. This isn't like my brother, Rose. He'd at least send a Patronus if he was held up."

Feeling as though he was eavesdropping, James walked on, pointedly ignoring the rest of the conversation as it streamed through the open window. Nothing good would come if he were caught, especially given that Rose had never been his biggest fan. Sure, they were amicable enough when forced to meet at family events, but he'd never forgotten the things he'd overheard whilst passing an empty classroom back in Hogwarts.

" _Really, Monica? You like James? You know he's loony, right? He's nuttier than a fruitcake when he's on his potions, and Merlin, you don't want to see how many screws are loose when he's off them."_

To this day, her words stung, and whilst it may have been easier to dismiss them if it had just been her, the problem was that her words were actually more of a group opinion than anything else. They'd forgotten that the kid he was before the diagnosis was exactly the same as the person he was after his episode, but, somehow, everything had changed.

No, he was not about to dredge up the past. There was no reason to, and he'd keep it all tucked away, just as he always had because he had enough to hurt him in the present without going out to lick at old wounds.

 **.o0o.**

Having finally escaped from Lorcan, Louis found himself whisked into the backyard by his mother for the festivities. Following the announcement from her that they'd go through with the general formalities before dinner and party games, he'd breathed a sigh of relief. Oh, birthdays weren't all bad, but the good parts were generally always the bits spent having a good time with the people he loved, the few he just liked, and those others than he pretended to like because they were family friends.

Of course, the dreaded formalities were always an annoyance. There was nothing quite like the feeling of being gawked at as you sliced a cake, or the way everyone, even the few who spent every other day of the year loathing you, smiling their sugary grins.

Merlin, thankfully it was over before he could really get irritable. That would put a damper on the rest of the evening, because the bit of Veela that was in him was quite fiery, and compounded with the explosive Weasley temper . . .

Better not to go there, he thought.

Dinner was served, and he found himself sitting between Lily, who for some reason seemed extremely worried, though she refused to tell him why when he asked, citing that she didn't want to ruin his day, and Albus, who was far to engrossed in a discussion with Teddy about the latter's latest album to be much fun.

At least his gumbo looked chatty, he reckoned, poking at the shrimp with his spoon. It was looking at him funny, he was sure of it.

Thankfully, dinner was also over relatively quickly, and he was able to get into the bit he really enjoyed. The party, not the formal, stand behind the cake and make a wish kind, but the one that started once everyone was well fed, with music, drinking, dancing, and games.

"Wotcher, Louis," said Teddy, offering him a beer, his hair changing colour to the beat of the music. Heck, who needed a strobe-light when they had hair like that, Louis thought with a grin.

"Teddy, mate, glad you managed to get the day off," he replied, clinking his bottle against his brother-in-law's before taking a sip. He fought to keep his expression neutral – beer had never really been his favourite since it was much to bitter to actually enjoy and savour, but this was his third bottle today. It was his own fault for being so nice – he really needed to learn how to refuse his cousins when they offered him this stuff.

"Draco pulled some strings. My agent's been on my case for the past month to finish up these last few songs, so it was worth it just to see the look on his face when I told him I wasn't coming in today."

"It really helps when you have a cousin in a position of power, doesn't it?" Louis laughs, because really, whilst his family did believe in letting each other make their own way in life, that wasn't to stay that strings hadn't been pulled here and there.

"You're one to talk," said Teddy, though his grin gave lie to the feigned indignation in his voice. "As if Aunt Ginny didn't shortlist you for that post at the Prophet."

"Guilty as charged, but then again, she wouldn't have done it if my writing wasn't as good as it was."

"Well, Draco wouldn't have done it if my albums weren't selling as well as they were."

The conversation was brought to a halt, however, when he heard a drunken yell from Fred, who had taken the opportunity to whack the piñata with a baseball bat. Unfortunately, he barely nicked it, and nearly took off Cassiopeia's head instead.

"Watch it, dumbass," she said, grabbing the bat off him. For a moment, she looked at the piñata, handed the bat to Louis. "Go on, birthday boy," she said. "Take the first shot."

"I would love to see what's in that," added Teddy. "I put it up, and it weighed a ton."

Louis smirked as he aimed and swung, catching the underside of the piñata and sending it swinging. Then, he frowned, noticing that the bat had become smeared with a dark liquid. It fell from his hands and he stepped back, looking at the piñata through wide eyes as the brightly-coloured paper began to darken.

Then, James was there, picking up the bat, with Uncle Harry at his side, urging everyone else to step back. Silence had fallen, and someone, mercifully, had turned off the radio.

James paused, hesitant, before prodding the bottom of the dripping piñata with the baseball bat. For a moment, the red drops stopped falling, and then, with a loud squelch, the sodden cardboard and paper gave way.

Louis heard a thump and then a scream, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see Lily collapse into her father's arms. More screams filled the air, and he heard a dry retching as James collapsed to his knees, hands pressed against his mouth.

He swallowed and felt dizzy, so dizzy, as he sank into the chair behind his birthday cake, his mouth dry and tasting of bile. Try as he might, he couldn't look away, and it was only then that he realised who it was that had fallen from the piñata, so bloodied that his pale skin and white-blond hair was a mottled mixture of dried brown and red.

Scorpius Malfoy.

 **.o0o.**

 **Author's Note:**

 **Hullo xD**

 **How are you guys doing? I know it's been a while since I've posted anything here, but this story was just begging to be told, and has been haunting me ever since I binge-watched Scream Queens. That is to say, I wanted to write a murder-mystery fanfiction.**

 **Lately, I've been AWOL, mostly because I've taken to focusing on my original story, as opposed to fanfiction. Thus, this may be my last multichapter on this site. However, I do plan to finish Lovers and Liars, and I may well stumble on a few plot bunnies in the future that need to be written.**

 **So, I really hope you readers enjoy this story, and remember, reviews and constructive criticism are always appreciated.**

 **Ciao Mates**

 **-Shane**


	2. The Killing Joke

**The Things We Do For Love**

Lavender felt a shiver run down her spine as she ran her hands across the deck. It had been a while since last she'd consulted the tarot for her own fortunes, but there was something about the quiet morning that filled her with dread. The air was chilled, frosting against the windows of her study, and it was nothing compared to the ice that seemed to have slithered into her bones.

Her husband's snores filtered through the open door – it was still early, much too early – and the sun had yet to rise. Then again, it had been a late night for the two of them last night, and they'd only returned from the son's home in Liverpool just shy of midnight. It had been a good night, with the news of an impending grandchild having been brought to light, and she wondered, for a moment, if she was just projecting her own anxiety and thinking it an omen.

No, she reasoned. Much as she had initially disliked her son's choice of bride – her father had been a Death Eater, honestly, and considering the scars Seamus and she both wore as badges of honour, they were perfectly justified in not being keen on having their eldest son marry Elena Flint of all people – she'd come to realise that, in some cases, the apple did fall far from the tree. The girl was a firecracker, but a healthy one, and she wouldn't suffer the same difficult pregnancies that had plagued Lavender and seen three of her children stillborn.

Then again, she thought, the girl hadn't been scarred, inside and out, by dark magic.

Drawing her thoughts back to the task at hand, Lavender shuffled the deck, taking deep breaths to centre herself. Almost immediately, the twin candles burst into flame, and she felt another shiver work its way down her spine. There was little in this world that magic could not explain, but for all her research and knowledge on the subject, the way her candles worked had always eluded her.

At best, she believed that it entailed her reading would be true. It was a sign, she hoped, from the spirits that danced on the other side of the veil, a symbol that they were trying to tell her something. It was a flimsy belief, if she was being perfectly honest, because she knew that she was a charlatan.

The Muggles that stopped by her shop in London believed in her art – well, they couldn't really deny that she knew things she had no business knowing. That, though, was just an illusion, a careful mixture of Legilimency, educated guesswork, and a few charms to heighten the atmosphere. It was quite profitable and nothing she did was against the law, per say, but it just heightened her fear for the times when the candles did burn.

At first, she'd thought Seamus was humouring her with a bit of wandless magic, but that had changed in time. Now, she feared the days when the fire flickered upon the wicks, and this morning was no different.

She drew the first card and laid it face down upon the desk, her heart beating like a drum. She could feel it, pounding away in her chest, and she instinctively pulled her shawl around her in the hopes of combating the chill that seemed to permeate the room. Sweat broke out across her neck and arms, and she drew the second card.

When she placed it upon the desk, far enough from the first to leave space for one more in the middle, she felt a jolt run through her arm. Her breath came in short, hurried pants, and she bit her lip. A part of her wanted to scatter the cards and hurl them into the fireplace, to watch them burn, to try and forget the feeling clawing at her.

Lavender knew that she could not.

The third card was the last, and as it was placed, she could swear that the room became colder. Perhaps it was her imagination, but she did not think so. Something was afoot, a blackened, icy flame that burned within her, and it urged her to turn the cards and unravel the secrets of the days to come. Taking a deep breath, she turned the first one, making sure to keep her eyes shut. To see truly, one must trust in the cards, and wait for the entire set to be revealed, lest assumptions are made.

She may be a charlatan, but that did not mean she did not believe in the old stories. Pureblood that she was, Lavender had grown up knowing that the legends told to little children were much more than fables passed down from parent to child. They were real, every story, and with them, every legend, hero, and monster.

Was not the story of Merlin not a perfect example of how truth could fade to obscurity and become little more than fiction? In time, all truths were forgotten, and she doesn't doubt that in a thousand years, even Voldemort may be nothing more than a story told by parents to scare their children.

Lavender turned the last card and opened her eyes.

She gasped, and her hands fell limp against the sides. The candles sputtered and died, and her breath misted in the air before her. Upon her desk, the three cards faced her, but her eyes were fixed upon the central depiction. The skull leered up at her, hooded in black and clutching a scythe, and she hurriedly swept the cards away. Then, the cold seemed to vanish, and the room returned to normal, and had she not been here, with knowledge of the sight, she would have sworn that she had dreamed it all.

The cards, however, did not lie. On the left was the Goddess, reversed in her position so that it looked like she was falling from the sky, and to the right bloomed the astrological symbol, Scorpio. It was damning, but the card in the centre . . . It was the reason for her premonition.

"Death," she murmured. "The Angel of Death."

 **.o0o.**

"I brought tea," said Louis, climbing out her bedroom window whilst using his wand to balance steaming brew. She didn't react, and if his heart had not already been broken for her, then it would have shattered at the sight. Lily, usually so full of life and laughter, sat with her hands around her legs and her chin tucked between her knees. Her red hair billowed behind her in the wintry air, and her skin was speckled with gooseflesh, her fingers tinged blue.

Not hesitating, he slipped out of his jacket and placed it around her, taking care to not spill the tea. Merlin, how long had she been out here? Aunt Ginny had said she'd been in her room all day, and she'd seemed quite sure of it, but then again, his aunt didn't know about this secret place.

He doubted anyone other than Lily, James, and himself knew about this little perch beneath her window, where it was so easy to hide away from the world and just think. It was a place of comfort and solitude, a place to hide away in when everything in the world had gone to hell.

"You're going to catch a cold if you stay here any longer," he said, settling down beside her. He tucked away his wand, holding a steaming cup of tea in each hand, and the heat stung at his cold palms. Truly, the British winter was a lovely time of year, he thought, glaring at the cloudy sky in the hopes that the sun would come out of hiding.

"I don't care," she said, and though her voice was fainter than a whisper, it was still a response, and more than anyone had gotten out of her since his party. He snorted at the thought. Louis had always been indifferent to birthdays at best, but now he could safely say that he hated them. Finding a corpse halfway through the festivities always did put a damper on things.

Instantly, he felt horrible for having such a despicable thought, and he was thankful that his cousin was not accomplished in the Mind Arts. Had she been, he'd have been slapped by now. Hell, he'd slap himself if he were in private. The man was dead – there really was no need to be a snarky bitch about it. True, he'd never really been a close friend to Scorpius Malfoy, but he had seemed like a decent enough bloke.

At any rate, Louis doubted Lily would have agreed to marry Scorpius if he wasn't a good guy. It sickened him, it did, to think of how easy it was for good people to be taken from the world, and of the void that such a loss left behind. This was not a death that people could come to terms with – Scorpius hadn't grown old and passed away from natural courses, he hadn't been ill, and he hadn't had a freak accident. Instead, he'd been murdered, and Louis felt as though that fact alone was the greatest blow to them all.

"I care," said Louis. "Your brothers care. Your parents care. And _he_ cares." He pauses, wondering if he'd overstepped his mark, but other than the way she tensed up, she gave no reaction. Her eyes were wet with tears, though, and suddenly, it was though a dam had burst. In short, ragged gasps, she wept, tears spilling freely down her cheeks. Louis didn't hesitate in setting aside the tea, balancing the cups as best he could upon a roof tile, and wrapping her arms around his cousin.

"We were looking at houses, Louis," she whispered. "We'd just chosen a date for our wedding. I was ready to spend the rest of my life with him." Her body wracked with sobs, she seemed to collapse into him, and he hated that he didn't know what to say. He hated that there was nothing he could do, because Lily had always been there for him, and here she was, at her lowest, and he could do nothing but offer her a shoulder to cry on.

"I'm sorry," he replied, finally, not knowing what else he could say. He didn't know if he could survive being in her shoes. Lily had been promised paradise and given disaster, and that just made it worse. The way she described it, the manner in which her voice broke – it twisted a knife within his chest.

"You know, you watch movies and read books about the widow vowing eternal vengeance," she said. "I used to think it was real, that the reaction to something like this would be vengeance."

"Lily. . ."

"I don't feel angry. I just feel sad, and I just want to curl up in bed and forget this happened, and to wake up in his arms the next morning. I want to hear him laugh at my hair because it's a bird nest before I comb it, and I want to tease him about not being able to fry an egg. I just . . ."

Louis remained silent as she trailed off, her voice lost to another stream of strangled sobs, and he just held her. Their tea had long since gone cold and it looked as though it would start raining soon, and in that moment, he made a decision.

There was a person he needed to talk to – issues that needed to be resolved. It was funny, he thought, that he was sitting here comforting a girl with a broken heart while figuring out how to fix his own. A little out of the left-field, perhaps, but as was so painfully obvious by what had happened to Scorpius, life was short and fragile. True relationships were hard for him, but there had been one, and now, as he contemplated his cousin, he remembered.

If it had been Joshua who had died, how would Louis feel knowing that the last thing he'd said to the other man was that he wished he was dead? It hurt him just to think about it. The stranger thing would be that his love would be without a care in the world, just as Scorpius now was, beyond the veil.

Honestly, was that not always the case? Those who've passed on were already at peace, and needed so blessing. They had no need of blessings. The only prayers that were needed should be spoken for those left behind.

 **.o0o.**

"Draco," she said, pausing in the doorway of her office. "I'm so sorry."

The man in question did not appear to have heard her, so engrossed was he in the view out her enchanted window. Beyond the glass, the night sky glimmered, a dark canvas scattered with hundreds of stars. She wondered what he saw when he looked at them, for to her, it looked as though the entirety of Black family had shown themselves to mourn the passing of another of their stars.

Perhaps, to him, it was just another reminder of how much he had lost.

"I was beginning to think you'd already gone home, Madam Granger," he said, eventually. "Your secretary was already gone by the time I'd gotten here." He stood as tall and regal as ever, but over the long years that Malfoy Holdings and the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had worked together, she'd gotten to know him better than she'd ever thought she would. She could see the way his knuckles whitened against his cane, the strain in his expression, and the way he seemed to hunch, if only a little.

"Why are you here?" she asked. Instantly, she felt guilty as she saw the way his face fell, if only for a moment. There had always been a melancholic air about the man, she knew, and since the war, sorrow had cloaked him like a second skin. Last night must have brought it all to the surface, she reasoned, and for good reason.

"Do you know why the Black family named their children after the stars? It wasn't that they believed themselves better than everyone else – though they did. It was that they believed that the stars were cracks in the floor of heaven, and that those we loved were still shining down at us through them." He shook himself, as if only now hearing her question, and added,

"I needed to get out of the house." He turned back to the window, leaning heavily against his cane, and added, "I keep expecting him to walk out of his room or come in from the gardens. Everything there reminds me of him, even Astoria. He had her eyes."

"That doesn't answer the question, Draco. Why'd you come _here_?" She stressed the last word as she walked to her desk, flicking her wand to order the unruly piles of parchment and, without a word, bent over to extricate two glasses and a bottle of whiskey from the bottom drawer. Pouring a generous serving, she offered him a glass, and leaned against the desk.

"The DMLE has worked closely with my family since the war. Funding, information, you name it, we've supplied it to you, so that we could build a better world than the one you and I grew up in. I've never asked for anything in return."

"You know that I can't do that," she said, immediately realising what he was implying. "You're grieving and that means you're not thinking rationally right now. Give you a lead, Draco, and you're going to go out there and do something that will force me to put you in Azkaban." That, she could not allow. Justice was one thing – it was what she stood for, after all, as the head of the DMLE. What she could abide, though, was vigilante justice, for she had seen enough of what that caused during the aftermath of the war.

She'd thought that Draco had seen enough of it as well, but either she was wrong or he no longer cared.

"I don't give a damn, Hermione. He was my son. _My son._ I can't just sit around mourning while the bastard who did this to him walks around. I just can't."

"Avenging your son does not mean throwing your life away." Her breath hitched as he whirled on her, grabbing her by the collar, their glasses falling to shatter upon the floor. He pulled her close, and hissed,

"If our positions were reversed, and it had been Rose or Hugo, what would you be doing? Look me in the eye and tell me that you wouldn't be right here begging me to help you catch and put the bastard in the ground." His eyes were wild, and she could hear his heart pounding in her ears like a sledgehammer. She wanted to deny it, to tell him that she'd let justice take its course – but that would be a lie.

She'd move heaven and hell for her children, even if it left the earth behind her in ruins. There was nothing she wouldn't do for them, and it was something, she felt, that was mutual among all parents. Hermione understood his pain, even as a fleeting pang struck her heart due to another memory, one from a time long since forgotten.

Of a time when a choice was made that changed the lives of both the people in this room.

"What is it you want then?" she whispered as he let go of her. They had precious little to go on as it was, seeing as they'd recovered no evidence from the scene or the body. The specialists were looking over the corpse with a fine-tooth comb at present, but a full forensic analysis would take days.

"Hermione, I am not asking you as a colleague. I am asking you as a parent and a friend – when you find out who did this to my son, I want a head start. I want to make them pay, and I want to remind this scumbag what happens when you cross a Malfoy."

She nodded. Without another word, he turned on his heel and left, the door swinging shut behind him. Extending her wand, Hermione repaired the glasses and refilled hers, gulping down the drink in one. Then, she slumped into her chair and buried her face in her hands. The obvious had been left unsaid, but she still felt it, and had felt it from the moment he mentioned her own children.

Had she chosen differently, all those years ago, Scorpius could have well had more than one parent in this office tonight.

 **.o0o.**

When George received the letter from Verity, he was at a loss as to what he should do. True, he'd known that she'd had a meeting with Scorpius Malfoy on the day his body was found – it would be odd if he didn't, given that the witch worked for him – but what she'd written in her letter was rather damning, all the same.

With the recent expansion of his business, he'd thought about increasing the links with Malfoy Holdings. It was no secret that, after the war, Weasley Wizard Wheezes had been on the brink of bankruptcy, and only the timely intervention of Narcissa Malfoy as an investor had saved it. So, thinking it best to resurrect those relations, George had proposed a new deal to massive conglomerate, one that he'd thought was more than fair.

Draco Malfoy had been quite eager, if memory served him, and all that was needed as of yesterday had been the smaller details, which Verity, in her role as manager of his Hogsmeade branch, had gone to meet Scorpius about. Something had happened, though, judging by this letter, and she'd seen something that had spooked her.

He'd written back, of course, and told her to meet him that evening. Perhaps it would have been wiser to go straight to the Aurors, but over the decades, George had come to the realisation that the oldest non-Weasley member of the Wizarding Wheezes family was quite excitable. The last thing he wanted was to waste the Aurors time with something that turned out to be imagined or relatively useless. They had bigger fish to fry, and as with all crimes, they needed to strike while the iron was hot or risk losing the trail.

It was past seven, however, and despite saying she'd meet him at his home in Abbotsbury at half-past-six, she wasn't here. He hadn't been alarmed, at first, but as the minutes had ticked by, he became aware that it was not in her nature to be late. Add to that the fact that there was a killer on the loose and that Verity claimed to have witnessed something sinister prior to her meeting, and he suddenly did not feel that well.

He'd call her, he decided. There was no reason to alert the Aurors just yet, and he'd just feel silly if he got Angelina worried for what turned out to be nothing. His wife was at Bill and Fleur's place, helping them clean up the house now that the crime scene had officially been cleared. Had he not had work that morning, he'd have gone as well.

Going to his bedroom to retrieve his Codex as fast as was possible, he noticed that the draught had gotten worse – these old houses always needed constant work – because his bedroom door was all but closed. He'd have to find out where the wind was coming from, he reckoned, and see what he could do about stopping it.

Moving towards the desk in front of the window, he reached for the Codex and cursed. Typical – he was out of Floo Dust, despite him filling the device with a pouch that morning. Rolling his eyes at the shoddy product, George decided that the next best option would be a Patronus and stuck his hand in his pocket.

It was empty. That was strange, he felt, and suddenly, something cold ran down his spine. A lot of weird things were happening . . . Panic began to set in, before he saw his wand stuck between a sheaf of parchment on the desk. Pushing his doubts aside, he said,

"You're getting old, Georgie. Turning into a right old worrier."

He looked out the window into the back garden and froze. Upon the swing he'd hung from an old oak sat a woman, who grinned at him in a manner that exposed each and every tooth. Her fuchsia hair clinging to her pale face, with sodden clothes plastered to her body, his first thought had been to yell out at her. Why was she sitting in the rain?

Then, he'd seen the ropes, the wires, and the nails. Had her wrists not been bound to the ropes holding up the swing, she'd have fallen, and if that failed, long nails had been driven through her thighs to protrude from the underside of the wooden base. Her lips were peeled back, stitched with wire into a gruesome grin, and as if on cue, the swing began to move despite there not being the slightest hint of a breeze.

"Verity," he said, and reached for the wand upon the desk. Before he could send a Patronus to Harry and the other Aurors, though, he heard it. The sound of the front door closing succeeded by the faint clink of steel coming from the kitchen, and he drew a deep breath. "Angie?" he called, hesitantly.

The sound of her voice was music to his ears.

He hurried to the kitchen as fast as he was able, leaning against the wall for support as the world seemed to swim around him. Balance had never been his strong point since he'd lost an ear, and moments like this, when the very world seemed to swim around him, made it worse than ever. Wand still held aloft, he opened the kitchen door and stepped inside.

Instantly, he realized that something was very, very wrong. On the island sat a Codex360, the shimmering, mirror-like display broadcasting a picture of his wife. As he watched, she spoke again, repeating the words that had brought him to the kitchen in the first place. A recording – and, if his memory served him right, he knew who had taken the video.

Angelina was dressed in that red dress that didn't fit her these days, and the image shimmered, as only an older model of the device did. He remembered how proud the person who owned that Codex had been, way back when it had been the latest innovation for magical communication, utilising the wonders of the Floo system and the two-way mirrors to create something very similar to what the Muggles called a cellphone.

The knowledge chilled him, and that was when he noticed the blade.

The knife hovered in front of him, aimed at his face, and he took a step back. The knife followed, moving so that it maintained the distance between them, and that was when he noticed the rattling. Glancing sideways, his breath hitched in his throat as he caught sight of the knife-block and the cutlery drawer, rattling as the various knives and blades edged their way into the air.

He flicked his wand to throw up a shield charm, and his eyes widened as the wand turned into a rubber chicken. Then, as the knives circled the room, cutting off the exits, he couldn't hold in his mirthless laughter as he stared at first them and then the chicken in his hand.

"Well," he said, with an uncharacteristically humourless chuckle, "I guess this time the joke is on me."

(Mercifully, the first knife took him in the eye, almost instantly stopping his brain.)

 **.o0o.**

 **Author's Note:**

 **Dun Dun Dun.**

 **Well, that happened. Thanks to all the brilliant reviews. It's always great to get such a strong show of support from my readers. As a side note, I'd like to clarify the bit about Scorpius being Lily's brother-in-law. No, there is no Al-Lily-Scor love triangle (though I realise how the wording in that segment could suggest one and have rectified it). This story, as does most of my work, features my original character, Cassiopeia Astoria Malfoy, sister to Scorpius, and youngest child of Draco and Astoria.**

 **Ciao Mates, hope you all have a brilliant day.**

 **-Shane**


	3. Run, Run, Brave Woman

**The Things We Do For Love**

His flat wasn't much, but it was home. Within these four beige walls, there was nobody to stare at him and proclaim him a lunatic, and so he relished the time he could hide away within. The furniture may be plain and the décor may be wanting, but it was his place, and he really wouldn't give it up for the world.

Harry and Ginny hadn't been too happy with the arrangement, but then again, he was of age, and he refused to be treated like a bomb that may go off at any moment. That had been his childhood, sadly enough, and it had been what felt like a lifetime of being watched like a hawk.

"Have you taken your potions today, James?" They'd look at him in an almost condescending, pitying manner as they'd ask him that, daily, at the breakfast table. Then, they'd ask him at dinner, or else before he went to bed. Love, pity, and fear, those were the three emotions they gave him, and it had always been clear to him which was the strongest.

A normal son is what they'd asked for and he was what they'd got, so he'd rather be on his own in this dingy flat have to make them suffer his presence. It wasn't his fault that _the other one_ would show up during his childhood at regular intervals, back before he'd gotten his diagnosis. No, but they liked to think it was – after all, how could a normal person understand that he couldn't help it when he had a breakdown, and that, despite his rare manic episodes, he was still the same boy who'd play at being a knight.

Life had never been easy for him since that visit to the Mind Healer. Being diagnosed as bipolar had been a hurdle, but thinking back, he was sure that he'd have been able to overcome it had he not also been the eldest son of the fucking saviour of the magical world. Constantly in the spotlight, his condition had been in the headlines for weeks, and considering how backwards his world was . . . Friends were never easy to keep, always looking at him as though he'd leap out a window at a moment's notice, and the few times he'd tried dating, the girl appeared to treat the relationship as some sort of project. He didn't need them to look after him, insist he go to bed early, or cook him weird new meals that they swore contained stuff that was good for him but tasted like vomit boiled twice and served with a side of piss.

"I'm a war hero, look at how I changed the world for the better," he muttered to himself, mimicking his Uncle Ron's voice. Real swell job, honestly, get rid of one prejudice whilst clinging on to another. It had also really helped his career – after all, who wouldn't want to hire a supposed lunatic as a Hogwarts professor. Currently, he got by as a security wizard for Malfoy Holdings, but considering his qualifications, it really wasn't fair.

"Well, James, that's enough bitching for one night."

He heaved himself off the couch, groaning when he realised his left leg had fallen asleep. As he waited for feeling to return, he heard the distinct pop of Apparition. Recognising the magical signature as it passed his wards, he muttered,

"Well, Albus, what brings you to my humble abode?"

"Can brothers no longer visit without an ulterior motive?" replied his brother. Hands tucked into the pockets of his winter coat, Albus flopped down upon the couch clutching a bag of takeout, and gave him a faint, almost forced, smile. "When's the last time the two of us just hung out, watched a movie, and got fat on Chinese?"

"Three years or so – just before Teddy had left on his first tour, and we haven't really hung out that much since then. Cut the crap, why're you really here?" He scowled, as if to make is point, but when Albus made no move or sound, he let out a sigh and sat down beside him. There was no point in dredging up old feelings or snapping at each other right now. After all, despite the fact that it had always been hard to connect with his brother, and that it was Al who got everything – everything! – that didn't mean it was his brother's fault.

It had just been the hands they'd been dealt. Him, the nutter, and his brother the success – two apples who'd fallen from the same tree but landed very, very far apart.

"I just mean, it isn't like you and I getting together is a regular thing."

"You're right," said Albus, unpacking the bag onto the coffee table. The smell of tangerine chicken wafted to James' nostrils, and he couldn't help the way his lips curled up, if only a little. Memories of two young boys fighting for the last pouch of soy sauce, and ending up both splattered in orange sauce after knocking over the food cartons sprung to mind, and he bit his lip.

That was a different time, a different life.

"We don't hang out often enough, just the two of us. Honestly, I didn't even notice how little time we'd been spending together until." He choked, looking down at the takeout. "Until my brother-in-law's body came falling out of a piñata."

"Decided to remember the brother you had rather than the one you chose?" James regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth, and he clenched his fist, turning away when Albus sucked in a breath. "That wasn't fair of me, I'm sorry."

"It's true, though. Unfortunately for us," replied Albus in a small voice. "Cass wanted to be with her parents and I understood. They needed some time as a family to come to terms, and then I thought of who I'd go to when something went wrong and I couldn't go to Cass."

"Scorpius, you'd go to your best friend," supplied James.

"Not always. I only knew him when I turned eleven. Before then, I'd come to you for help, remember?"

James remembered. He'd tried to forget, to wash himself of those happy memories, but right now they came flooding back to him. His fist unclenching, he slung an arm around his brother's shoulders, leaned back into the couch with his carton in is hand, and said,

"I have Lord of the Rings on DVD."

Albus snorted, wiping his eyes with the back of his sleeve, and replied,

"Still dreaming of marrying Arwen?"

"Shut up."

 **.o0o.**

"Please, just tell me you have something," said Hermione as she came up to Harry, keeping back to not impede the swarm of Aurors who were currently searching every inch of the house. She massaged her temples, trying to rid herself of the headache that had been plaguing her since she'd heard the news in the early hours of the morning. True, it wasn't usual for her to be out in the field, but this case was different.

It was personal.

"Nothing yet," said Harry, leaning against the island and covering his face with his hand. "Terry and Padma are searching upstairs and Ron's out back at the swing with his team. Hopefully they find something because the kitchen is completely bare." He seemed defeated, and she did not envy him in the slightest. Whilst she could operate from within her office and simply oversee the cases, he was often the first on the scene. The fact that this was George . . . Hermione was just glad she hadn't seen the body.

That would truly have broken her.

"How's Angelina?" he added.

"Roxanne took her to the Burrow after I interviewed her. Fred's on his way there as well – he wanted to come here and see if there was anything he could do to help, but I didn't want him to see the house like this."

Harry closed his eyes, pinching at the bridge of his nose, and he let out a sigh. Deciding that if they allowed themselves to wallow in their grief, now off all times, they would be lost, Hermione turned her attention back to the case itself. Still pointedly not looking at the dried blood sprayed across the tiles and walls, she asked,

"Who was the other victim?"

"Verity Holmes, one of George's employees. She managed his branch in Hogsmeade, if I remember correctly. I met her a few times – she was a favourite with the kids from their third year upwards."

"I remember her," said Hermione, thinking back to her sixth year. Verity had been just another clerk at the Wizarding Wheezes flagship store, and she'd seen the witch during the last battle. She had suspected, back then, that Verity had been involved with Fred, but the war had changed that in the worst way.

Perhaps, reasoned Hermione as forgotten memories of the other woman began to fill her mind, that was why Verity had never married or given the slightest inclination of settling down. The war had left scars on them all, and some had never recovered from the loves they had lost.

George was a prime example of that. He'd settled down and raised a family, true, but Hermione knew that there was not a day that passed that he had not mourned his twin.

"Now summers gone and left us, so shall we return to winter."

She inclined her head, and Harry frowned. Like her, it seemed he had been lost in his thoughts. "What was that?" she asked, curious.

"Just something Lavender said the other day. She claims to have had a premonition." Hermione sucked in a breath, ready to dismiss the notion at once, but then caught the look in his eyes. He didn't want to believe it any more than she did, but they'd be mad to call a prophecy preposterous after all they'd been through.

"You don't think . . ." Harry trailed off as she shook her head. Yes, things were looking grim, but there was no reason to leap to that conclusion. _He_ could never return, not after they'd shattered every piece of his soul and Harry had seen him in limbo. Thinking otherwise would just deter them from finding the actual culprit of these heinous crimes.

After all, had Voldemort returned, Draco's mark would have burned, and she would have been told at once.

At that moment, Padma and Terry walked up to them, both looking worse for the wear. She sighed – the Aurors were exhausted, but there was little to do to deter them from their current late hours. As unlikely as it was, Scorpius Malfoy had been a much loved member of the Wizarding World, overcoming his family's reputation in the process. That, however, paled in comparison to the fire that George's murder had lit within their hearts. He had been beloved by all – the one man in this world who could make you laugh in the darkest of times.

Padma coughed, and she looked up, intrigued. "Anything?" she asked.

"We found a letter in the master bedroom, Hermione." Terry handed her the plastic bag containing the parchment, looking pained. Evidently, he'd already read it, and judging by the look on Padma's face, so had she. Hermione bit her lip, steeling herself, as she held it up.

It was so different, she reasoned, as she scanned the words, to be investigating the death of a loved one. She had been working for this department since Hogwarts, completing her Auror training before attaching herself to the legal division, and steadily climbing the ranks until she was the Department Head. It had not been easy, but in all those years, she had never experienced something like this . . . not since the war.

This, though, she could argue, was so much worse than losing somebody during the war. It had been expected, back then, that people would die, and at some primal level people had prepared for that eventuality. When the bodies had been carried into the Great Hall, it had been anguish, but they had known it was an eventuality.

These murders, though . . . they came from nowhere, without explanation, and turned her world on its head.

"What does it say?" asked Harry. Shaken from her train of thoughts, she looked up, and it dawned on her. If the contents of this letter proved true . . . Merlin, oh Merlin.

"Verity had a meeting with Scorpius the day he was murdered. She . . . she says she something at that office – something that unnerved her, and that she wanted to talk to George about it before wasting the Aurors time." Hermione's voice was shaky, and she leaned against the counter, fingers trembling.

"Could whatever she have seen have gotten George and her killed?" asked Harry. "Hermione," he added, when she remained silent, heart thumping in her chest. "What is it?"

"Whoever it is that's behind these murders – it they're killing everyone who could have evidence against them," explained Padma, and Hermione noticed Terry gesturing to Harry. It didn't matter. Why be discrete when she herself had already worked out who the next target was?

She whipped out her Codex and ran her finger across the mirrored surface, activating the device. The vial slotted into the side glimmered green, filled with Floo Dust, and she spoke a name into the device as she brought it to her ears.

"Rose Granger-Weasley," she said, her entire body trembling as she waited for her daughter to answer her Codex. Beside her, Harry's eyes widened, realization dawning upon him, and he placed an arm around her.

"Padma, Terry, get to her flat now. I want my niece in protective custody," he barked, dismissing the two Aurors with a wave. The pair of them nodded, Disapparating at once, and he turned back to her. "She'll be fine, Hermione. The Aurors are on their way."

Hermione didn't listen, choosing instead to focus on the beeping of her Codex. Hurriedly, she once again muttered her daughter's name, so as to recall her. On the third try, she turned to Harry, and her knees shook so much that had he not been holding her up, she'd have fallen.

"She isn't picking up . . . Oh Merlin, she isn't picking up."

 **.o0o.**

Diagon Alley was unnaturally quiet that night, and with a start, she realised that she was one of the last people still around. Around her, a token few locked the front doors of their stores, flicking their wands to erect their wards for the night whilst casting furtive looks around them. The recent murders had headlined the papers, and it was no surprise that people were eager to return to the safety of their homes.

It was just her luck that it had been her day to close up the restaurant. She hated these nights – especially when the only thing she had to go home to was an empty one-bedroom loft and a bottle of gin. She hated that it had come to this for her, but what was she to do?

Stay with Dean after he'd bedded that little fresh-faced harlot, straight out of Hogwarts and "interning" at his gallery? Please, she had much more respect for herself than that, but she couldn't deny that life had gotten a lot harder for her in the days since. Raising two children had put a bit of a damper on her career plans, but she'd been happy.

Life just loved to give you the finger when everything was fine, and her marriage had been no exception.

Swallowing, she drew her jacket around her to stave off the chill and began the long walk to the Leaky Cauldron. Yet another finger from the universe – she'd been drunk one time, and who cared if she ended up splinching off half her arm. St. Mungo's had fixed it up at once, and yet, the Ministry had suspended her Apparition license.

Having a sister in the Auror Department, apparently, was pretty much useless.

Parvati was just passing Weasley Wizarding Wheezes, feeling a slight pang as she noticed the sign upon the front door. _Closed Indefinitely_. In the months that she'd been working at the café, she'd grown accustomed to seeing George behind the counter as she made her walk home, doing the nightly inventory of the store. Unlike most entrepreneurs, he'd never really stepped away from that counter, opting to make himself a part of the store rather than hiring a subordinate for the job.

It would take her a while to get used to seeing another face at that counter.

Then, she heard it. A tinkle of breaking glass coming from behind the store, and she paused. This was none of her business, she thought, and with a murderer on the loose it really wasn't smart to go investigating. Still, something in her willed her to draw her wand and find the source of the disturbance.

She was more than a middle-aged divorcee, she thought, as she slipped into the slender alleyway, her wand held aloft. She'd fought in a war, and was a member of Dumbledore's Army. She'd defended her school and home when the tides of war had crashed upon the very walls of Hogwarts, and she had survived with little more than scratches. She refused to walk away and let the shop of her deceased friend be defiled by some opportunistic robber.

George had always been good to her since her divorce, after all, as had Angelina. There had been many nights when she'd joined them for a cup of tea in the unused loft above this very shop, where they'd given her a shoulder to cry on – and she would not stand idly by.

(Lavender drew a card and gasped. The Goddess fell from the sky, and gave rise to the Angel of Death.)

"Lumos," whispered Parvati, and the tip of her wand lit the dark alley with a warm glow. Shadows danced around her, and she saw the shattered window. Through it, she could see George's office, the drawers yanked out from his desk, the papers scattered as though somebody had been rifling through.

"Who's there?" she called, as she heard the sound of footsteps from around the corner. Pressing herself against the wall, she edged her way closer, the words of a spell upon her lips. "The Aurors are on their way. You'd best come out before things get messy."

(Run, run, brave woman. The devil is here and it takes no prisoners.)

"They know who you are, you know," lied Parvati, when she heard a muffled gasp. "George's wards are excellent." She felt the hairs along her neck rise. There was something off about this whole endeavour – surely a petty thief would have come out by now, eager to turn themselves in an avoid the full wrath of the law.

It struck her then that she may very well be in the general vicinity of a killer. Could it be that George's killer had assumed there was something in his office that may be incriminating – instantly, she felt foolish. Her bravery washed away like rainwater. Why hadn't she called Padma at once?

Thinking fast, she flicked her wand and her patronus burst fought. She nodded to it and sent it off, the spectral swallow flitting away to the Aurors. They would get her message and be here at once, and then this nightmare could finally end.

She heard a shuffling, and swallowing, she clenched her empty fist. Now was not the time to panic. "Do you see that Patronus? I saw you. The Aurors will know who you are now. There's no use running."

Then, it ripped through the air. A scream, high-pitched and filled with pain. Instinct kicked in even as her mind urged her to turn the other way and run, but she was a Gryffindor at heart, and she would not abandon another victim to this monster.

She followed the direction of the scream, her wand held aloft. With her free hand, she fingered her old DA Galleon, which now hung from her throat on a slender golden chain. Her Codex buzzed in her pocket, but she ignored it, just as the scream came again, louder, and it sounded as though somebody was being stabbed.

"Wrong place, wrong time, Missus Thomas," said a familiar voice, laced with regret, from behind her, and before she could turn, she felt something strike her in the head and she fell, the world going black.

(The jagged piece of concrete lay beside her, stained red, as blood soaked through her dark hair.)

 **.o0o.**

When they had first begun dating, it had been no surprise that they'd turned a few heads. Not only was Louis a Weasley, who by that very virtue was doomed to have his face splashed across the front page whenever he did anything, but there was also the age gap. He'd first met Josh when he'd been eleven, getting sorted at Hogwarts, and his boyfriend had been a tall, dark-skinned youth in his just starting his seventh year at Hogwarts.

When they'd first expressed an interest in each other, over the summer holidays when Louis had been fifteen, Josh had just concluded his Healer training. It hadn't been easy balancing him being at school with his boyfriend already having a full-time career, and it had led to a lot of heated arguments between the pair.

The last one, though – he didn't know if he'd be able to take back the things that he'd said in the heat of the moment. Words cut deeper than knives, and as he ran waited outside Joshua's front door, he ran his fingers through his hair. The silky blond strands streaming through his fingers, he knocked again, and frowned when he realised that there was somebody looking at him through the peephole.

Of all the immature brats! His knuckles slammed against the door, his knocking so loud that it could probably be heard by the people living three floors below them, and he felt his eye begin to twitch. Louis was beginning to remember why exactly they'd had their last fight – for somebody so much older than him, Josh really could act like a child when he wanted to.

"For Merlin's sake, Josh. Open the fucking door!" Well, this reunion was going swimmingly, he groused, folding his arms and tapping his foot. "Do not make me break out the Veela charm." Of course, he wouldn't really use his innate abilities to work his way into the home – that was, quite frankly, manipulation, and he really didn't want a relationship built on that. Josh knew he wouldn't stoop quite so low, but he made sure to put as much menace into his voice as possible to ensure that he wouldn't be laughed off.

Thankfully, the door swung open.

"You do realise there is a murderer on the loose," said Louis, pushing his way into the apartment, and ignoring the way Josh seemed about ready to giggle. "I could have died out there for all you care." It struck him that he was able to use such a tragedy to his own advantage, but then again, all was fair in love and war.

When it came to the two of them, Louis reckoned, that was the best the way of putting it.

"I'm sorry about your uncle," said Josh, and just like that the mirth disappeared. Dammit, he'd wanted to come here and simply lay his heart upon his sleeve while the fire was still crackling beneath his feet – not mourn. He'd pushed thoughts of Uncle George aside as he'd made his way here, not wanting to be distracted, so damn Josh for bringing it up.

Damn the man for making his eyes sting with tears and his throat grow tight.

"Shut up," he muttered. "Let me just be mad at you." His body quavered, his fists clenched, and he shut his eyes to mask the tears. He opened his mouth to continue and closed it when no sound came out, and hell, his cheeks were beginning to feel wet.

Muscled arms wrapped around him, and he found himself sagging into his boyfriend by instinct. For a brief moment, he considered pulling away, but he bit his lip and set himself be guided over to the couch. Burying his head into the nape of Joshua's neck, he whispered, his voice muffled,

"I'm sorry I said those things to you."

"We both said some pretty awful things, didn't we? I'll forgive you if you'll forgive me."

Louis let out a sound that was half a sob and half a laugh, and said, "You know me. I'd never have come here if I hadn't already forgiven you." He looked up at the other man and added, sliding one hand down to rest upon Josh's thigh. "I don't want to talk about everything that's going wrong right now. I just want to forget, just for tonight." Without waiting for the response, he pressed his mouth to his boyfriend's, and parted his lips to allow in the tongue.

The kiss deepened, breaking only when they tugged their shirts up over their heads. He kicked off his trainers, relaxing himself as he felt himself being lifted up, and smiled when he realised he was being carried to the bedroom. Like a bride on her wedding night, he thought, though he'd never be able to pull off a veil.

Their sheets and limbs tangled together, his back arching as he felt teeth sink into his neck, and he felt something he hadn't felt in a long time. Happiness – it wasn't the sex that brought forth the emotion, though that was rather good, if he was being honest. No, this emotion had filled him from the moment he'd embraced his boyfriend, because it was the feeling of home, love, and acceptance.

He remembered the emptiness he'd felt after the last argument. It had been in a park, and he'd called after Josh, desperate to apologise as soon as the words had left his mouth. He'd yelled his name two, maybe three, times before giving up, and simply sitting there on that bench for the rest of the evening.

Now, as he lay sated in his lover's arms, feeling warm fingers draw circles upon his waist whilst he nuzzled at Josh's neck, Louis knew that he had to let go of his pride. It was what was almost always to blame for their frequent spats – his attitude – but he couldn't let it go on.

Life was too short, after all, and he could never deny the beat his heart skipped when he was kissing Joshua Jordan.

(Such sweets moments were never made to last.)

Lazy and languid, he stretched, and was just about to ask Josh if he had any Listerine pocket strips – really, he was not going to go to sleep with this taste in his mouth – when the scream rang through the air. Louis was out of bed in an instant, yanking on a discarded pair of jeans, not realising they weren't his own, before rushing to the balcony.

The scream had come from the street below – Diagon Alley – and then he heard the woman.

He scanned the street below, and in the background he could hear Joshua speaking into his Codex, no doubt calling the Aurors for assistance. He focused, however, on the woman's voice, searching for her, and then he saw the light shining in the alley behind Wizard Wheezes.

" – know who you are!"

He heard the voice, and then the screaming began again. It was loud, a piercing shriek, as though somebody was being stabbed, but his attention was on the witch speaking within the alley. "Run, you idiot," he wanted to scream, but he knew that she'd never hear him from up here.

The light fluttered and went silent and the screaming stopped. He turned away, feeling ill, and that was when he saw it. So caught up in whatever it was that had been going on behind Wizard Wheezes, he had missed the corpse strewn in front of the building.

No, he had looked there. It hadn't been there when he'd first taken a glance.

From the balcony he could see a woman sprawled in the street, and even from this height he could make out who she was. Her body twitched, pale fingers clutching at her blood soaked blouse, and Louis gasped.

Alive.

She was still alive.

"Josh," he said, "I think that's Rose."


	4. What Lies Beneath

**The Things We Did For Love**

Two years ago, he'd left a home of peace and happiness. Now, he returned to one of blood and death.

His gun holstered on the left side of his waist, he stepped out of the fireplace, the green flames catching the knife sheathed at his right. Eyes flashing, he paused only for Francesca to follow, and then began making his way to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. People made way for him as if they were afraid – but then, he did look rather intimidating with his dark sunglasses and spiked brown hair – and he could not help but scoff.

Most of these people had lived through a war. He and his girlfriend were decidedly not the most terrifying things to traipse through the atrium. Then again, he wore his badge proudly upon his belt, and it did give most people pause, no matter where he went in the world.

"I'd almost forgotten what this place looked like," said Francesca, her blond hair falling in a sleek wave past her shoulders. Her skirt was long and black, the hem drifting upon the floor, but the slit running up the side revealed her high boots and leggings, which in turn drew attention to the knife strapped to her calf. Her blouse was red, the sleeves loose and flowing whilst the bodice clung to her, and she too hid her eyes behind a pair of sunglasses.

Perhaps, he reasoned, as they waved aside the security wizard at the front desk, it would have been better for them to dress in more civilian looking attire. Then again, despite their recent months spent in deep cover, they had grown far too accustomed to this style than to the usual slacks and shirts.

The elevator was full when they reached it, but by the time they'd reached the DMLE, it was empty. Apparently, everyone else who had been in it had realised they had urgent business on other floors. As much as he'd like to smack the lot of them and inform them, politely, that people like them only slept safe and sound at night because of people like him, he didn't see the point.

The Guardians were used to being treated with wary avoidance by the general public. Their motto was a simple one – _Whatever it takes –_ and they lived by it. Whether it was breaking a drug ring or recovering a high profile hostage, they didn't play by the same rules as other law enforcement agencies, be it the Aurors, the Order, or even the ludicrous Ghost Division.

"You'd think they'd have stepped up their security, considering the recent killings," he said, as he walked past the offices and cubicles, heading right for the heart of the department. Her door was just as he remembered it, wood and polished bronze, with her name engraved into a golden plaque.

"We could just, you know, stop by their house instead of starting of here," replied Francesca. "As tough as you think you are, the victims are all members of your family."

"Fran, we were undercover for six months. If it wasn't my family, I'd not have come home at all." It was the truth – they'd jeopardized a huge operation that had been years in the making to come here, but as she had said, this was family.

Weasleys did not turn from their family – unless they were Percy, but then again, he'd never liked that particular uncle.

He knocked on the door, knowing that Hermione would never let him hear the end of it. Well, at least she wouldn't stop hounding him for being rude and impolite when he visited home, and those visits were few and far between.

It was the nature of his work. He couldn't just grab a Portkey whenever the need arose like Uncle Charlie in Romania or Aunt Gabrielle in France – his job was one that kept him busy for weeks at a time.

He wouldn't give it up for the world.

"Come in," said a cool, collected voice, and he nodded in approval before pushing open the door. Trust Hermione to keep a clear head in the midst of such strife – it was imperative to not go to pieces when there was turmoil. Doing so would only get you killed faster.

"Mother," he said, wearing his smirk like armour as he traipsed in, followed closely by Francesca. His girlfriend's eyes never stopped flitting this way and that, analysing the surrounding for any and all danger.

"Hugo." Just like that, he was brought to a halt as his mother veritably hurled herself at him, grasping him in her vicelike arms. He shifted, uncomfortable, because this just wasn't something he was accustomed to. Once, maybe, but the training he'd undergone had knocked that sentimental nonsense right out of him, and rightly so.

"You should have called. I'd have called your father up here if I'd known you were coming."

"I'll see him when I get home," replied Hugo, delicately prying his mother off him. "I don't really need a fuss. This is Francesca, by the way. We're dating."

"How are you doing, Madam Granger-Weasley?" asked Francesca, giving him an admonishing look. It was almost like she expected some big song and dance as she was introduced to his mother. He wouldn't admit it out loud, but he found it endearing.

Though, at the back of his mind, he wondered how many assignments it would take to make her lose her cheer and become like him, and by extension, every other Guardian to walk through Haven.

"All things considered, I'm holding up alright. Though, the fact that it takes a string of murders to get my son to visit is somewhat unsettling." Then, straightening, she looked Francesca in the eyes, and Hugo fought the urge to snigger. It was rather obvious that his mother was sizing up his girlfriend. Before he could speak, though, Hermione had turned back to him.

"Your sister's fine, by the way. Victoire had her healed in a thrice, and she should be discharged from St. Mungo's by noon." She stopped, even though he could tell there was so much more she wanted to say, so much more she wanted to share with him, to ask about him.

Hugo nodded, wordlessly thanking her for her restraint. It was awkward for him to speak to her openly, to speak to anyone outside of Haven, really. They hadn't seen the things he'd seen, done the things he'd done, and of course, something in him always told him to shut up whenever he tried to open up.

"Your secrets build walls that keep you alone, and it is in that solitude that both you and the people you love are safe." His mentor had told him, and the message had been ingrained into him since he'd joined the Guardians. It rankled, sometimes, especially when he visited and saw his family sharing such strong bonds.

It was the bed he'd made, though, and he was comfortable laying down in it, if only for the surety that by doing what he did, he kept them safe from the things that went bump in the night.

 **.o0o.**

Hermione breathed a weary sigh as she left her office. Breath stained with the slight scent of alcohol, she paused only to pull her hair into a ponytail before taking off for her cottage in Godric's Hollow. Rose would be waiting there, with a pair of Aurors ensuring her safety, and she would go about her questioning of her daughter in comfort. There was no way in hell that she'd even consider bringing Rose into the Ministry after the accident, and she just hoped that whichever Aurors were on duty wouldn't notice she'd been drinking.

It wasn't her fault her son had decided to grace them with his presence after such a long time. Bloody hell, she hadn't seen Hugo since the Christmas before last, and he'd been a lot warmer back then. She cursed under her breath. The International Magical Security Council that had been founded in the aftermath of Voldemort's defeat had been all well and good, but the creation of the Guardians had been something she had lobbied against with everything she had.

To see her only son wear their badge . . . to effectively lose him to their cold clutches. It stung at her, as it had when he'd first announced his desire to join them, and she could tell just by looking at him that he'd changed.

Shaking thoughts of her wayward son and his new girlfriend aside as she passed an empty office, she paused and closed her eyes. Leaning against the doorframe and reading the plaque on the door, she sent her prayers to the two Aurors who had taken a temporary leave of absence following the most recent murder. Terry and Padma Boot were two of her best, and whilst they'd never been particularly close to her while at Hogwarts, they'd come a long way since. Now, she could safely name them both as people she trusted with her life, and indeed, she had done just that over the years.

Steadying herself, she moved on, lost in her thoughts until she reached the Apparition point. The suffocating darkness enveloped her, yanking at her navel, and she grimaced when the heels of her pumps made contact with solid ground. She'd never really enjoyed that particular mode of transport, but she had to admit that what it lacked in comfort it made up for in speed.

Hugo was sitting on her front porch with a cigarette between his lips, tendrils of smoke snaking their way out his nose. He inclined his head by way of greeting and offered her little more, and she ignored the pang in her chest as she walked past him. She didn't want this for her family. Rose, never home, always out with this boy or that, and Hugo, missing for months at a time. When she looked at the two of them, she remembered the squalling babies she'd once held in her arms – and couldn't recognise the adults they'd become.

Perhaps, it was because they'd grown so adept at hiding themselves away and keeping their secrets close to their hearts. She couldn't fault them there – they'd grown up with her as a mother, and by that logic, had learned from the best.

(But for one single choice, this family may not even have been hers at all, and she'd even now be preparing for the funeral of her son.)

Hermione shook her head. What was it about the recent days that had her questioning her life? Everything was falling apart and the shards were striking her from every direction – honestly, it was becoming hard to so much as stand under the onslaught. She couldn't buckle, not now. She had to be strong for Rose, for Ron, and for everyone else who relied on her.

"Rose," she said, as she entered the living room and gave her daughter a wan smile. The girl was huddled beneath a blanket on the nearest couch, a mug of soup clutched in her hands, her eyes focused on the television. Some silly reality fashion show, Hermione noted, as Rose looked up and sighed.

"I guess it's time for me to be interrogated, isn't it?" Rose's smile was tight, and she took a sip of soup as Hermione took a seat on the armchair beside her. "Hugo sent the Aurors away," added Rose, "They were apparently doing a shitty job of protecting the place."

"He's just looking out for you," replied Hermione, masking her annoyance. As much as she respected her son's abilities, he had no right to dismiss the people who answered to her. Guardian or not, she would have to have a serious talk with him soon.

"It's for the best, really," said Rose. "I'll be going back to my place tonight, and I don't want them with me."

"Rose, you were nearly killed last night. You need protection."

"I'm not going to live in fear," retorted Rose, jerking her head up and wincing. "If I let myself be coddled by Aurors every minute of every day, then the bastard wins. I'll not let that happen."

Hermione rubbed her temples. Merlin, she was getting a headache. This was ludicrous, but when she opened her mouth to protest, Rose spoke over her,

"He caught me by surprise last time. I'm on my guard now."

Hermione sighed in defeat, before her mind picked up on that tiny, insignificant detail. "He?" she asked, folding her arms. "Is the killer a male?"

"I think so," answered Rose. "It all happened so fast. I had just stopped by our offices in Diagon to sort out as much of the paperwork in Scorpius' office as I could for when Mister Malfoy wants to look over it all, and I decided to stop by the Leaky for a drink before going home. They jumped me as I was passing Wheezes."

"Did you see or hear Parvati?"

"I heard a woman. It must have been her – at that time I just assumed that it was my imagination. As it turns out, getting stabbed hurts a lot more than waxing my . . . well, you get the picture."

The questioning went on, and with every passing moment, Hermione felt herself getting closer to capturing and killing the bastard picking off her friends and family, one by one.

 **.o0o.**

As he turned away from the fireplace, he breathed a sigh of relief. The embers still burned a pale green, signalling the great blaze that had roared within the grate not a moment before, but he chose not to focus on it. It had been his decision to send them away, after all, and the fact that his penthouse was now empty meant nothing.

The women in his family had a discomforting way of following their beloveds to war and dying because of it, and he refused to have Victoire share the fate of his mother and grandmother before him. Hope Lupin had been a brave woman, by all accounts, but she was a Muggle – following his grandfather, Lyall, into a battle with the Death Eaters during the First War armed only with a shotgun had been suicide. His mother, Tonks, had followed his father to the Battle of Hogwarts, and because of it, he had basically been born an orphan.

Now, though, there was his unborn son to think about, as well as her, and with a killer prowling the magical world, he would not put them in jeopardy. They would be safe in France with his wife's aunt, Gabrielle, he reasoned.

Teddy could do what needed to be done without worrying about their safety, and it was exactly what he needed to steel himself for the coming days. He was not an expert duellist like his Godfather – indeed, Teddy had never even gone through the rigorous training regimen of the Aurors – but that did not mean he was easy prey. People liked to think that as a musician, he was all voice and good looks, but he had a spine of steel and could hold his own in a physical confrontation with all but the best of them.

As far as he could tell, every murder so far had been physical, rather than magical, and it would give him the edge.

Frowning, he stepped into the fireplace and Floo'd to Wizarding Wireless, biting his lip to keep the ill-feeling at bay. The interview had been scheduled months ago and couldn't be cancelled, but he needed to keep it short so as to reach Malfoy Manor in time. His cousin's body had finally been released, and the funeral was this evening. He had been asked to be one of pallbearers, and he'd accepted the honour, despite not wanting to be so close to the body.

After all, he'd seen enough of Scorpius when he'd fallen out the piñata he'd strung from that tree. He blinked, shaking his head. There was no way he could have known . . . no way he could have prevented it. Harry had told him as much, for Scorpius had already been dead when he'd been stuffed into that piñata, as the autopsy had revealed.

Shaking aside his thoughts, he headed for reception. Promptly, he was led up to the studio, and he swallowed. What he was about to do could well be the stupidest thing he'd ever done, but it made sense. Harry and Ginny would be furious, not to mention his grandmother, but he was a grown man, and he wanted to stop these killings.

How better to trap a hunter than to twist the narrative? Make the predator the prey and flush it into the open, and this entire debacle would be solved. Besides, it was not in his nature to stand by and let the people he loved drop like flies when there was something he could do about it.

The presenter, Cho Dursley, gestured him in with a smile on her face as she spoke into her microphone. He leaned across to shake her hand before taking a seat across from her and putting on his headset, wincing slightly at her over the top introduction.

"Today, we are joined in studio by none other than Teddy Lupin, who's newest single, _The Wolves Will Come Again_ , continues to dominate the charts, beating out the Weird Sisters for most consecutive weeks at number one of the Magical Top One-Hundred."

"Brilliant being here again, Cho, how's the family?"

"Oh, the usual. Dudley's on another diet and the kids are mutinying at their new curfews. What about you? Care to quash the rumours that Victoire is expecting triplets?"

"I am old enough to have babysat several of the Potters and Weasleys when I was a teenager and they were still in diapers," he replied, grinning. "Trust me that if there was any truth in that, I would be in catatonic shock just imagining the horror I'd be going through in a few months."

Cho laughed. "That's saying something, isn't it? Let's set that aside for the moment and talk about your cancelled concerts. You've got fans up in arms across Britain because of it, so what would you like to say to them right now?"

"Well, as flattered as I am that they'd risk their lives to come see me, I have to remind them that there is a serial killer on the loose, and this is for their own safety. My team is working closely with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and hopefully, I'll be able to see all your beautiful faces soon enough."

"Speaking of the recent killings, what is your viewpoint on them?"

Teddy swallowed. It was time to put his plan into motion. A sliver of regret worked its way into him, but he discarded it. This was bigger than he was and without significant risk, there would be more significant reward.

Victoire was going to kill him when she got back.

"I think it's war, but we're not facing an army. This is an army of one, and they're taking the cowards approach. I know who you are, coward, come out in the open and face me."

Cho spluttered, her face red. Her eyes wide, she somehow managed to choke out a question, "I'm sorry, but did you just say you know who the killer is?"

"Oh, I know who the killer is," lied Teddy, his mind made up. "I'll be going to the Aurors with this information in exactly thirty-six hours – that is, unless you want to come turn yourself over to me before then. Who knows, maybe you'll get a lighter sentence. Anyway, I'll be waiting on the top floor of the Malfoy Holdings Recording Studios at sunset tomorrow."

 **.o0o.**

"Honestly, are you mental?"

James sniggered as he sipped his coffee – Irish, of course – because of the irony. It was so refreshing to not have the question directed at him for once that he almost didn't feel sorry for Teddy being on the firing line. Seriously, though, it was his own fault. After that stunt on the radio, coming to Grimmauld to face down the wrath of Ginny Potter was absolutely insane.

For his part, he was only here for Lily. His sister needed him, which was another nice turn of pace, especially since they were about to head to the funeral of Scorpius Malfoy. The fact that he was getting a show out of the deal, with his mother hurling hexes across the kitchen while his godbrother ducked and weaved, was more than he could hope for.

Bloody hell, it was good to be considered the sane one in the room for once.

"This is going to flush out the threat, Ginny," bellowed Teddy, deflecting a saucepan with a cutting board. "It's not smart to just wait for the next killing for evidence."

"So, putting yourself in danger is the best thing you could come up with?"

"Don't be such a scaredy-cat. I'm doi –"

Teddy was cut off by her screech, so loud that even James looked up with a raised eyebrow. He'd been on the receiving end of his mother's tirades many times, but he'd never seen her like this. Had Teddy been within her reach, James was certain that his mother would have slapped the other man at this point.

"I was dodging killing curses before you were born, boy! Forgive me for not wanting the boy I raised for half his life to end up as dead as my brothers."

Teddy flinched but maintained his glare, but before Ginny could say anything else, he was gone, storming from the room. The dull crack of Apparition echoed through the home once he past the boundaries, and James found himself raising his eyebrows at his mother as she leaned against the counter, her chest heaving.

"Don't start, James," she said, her eyes closed.

"I'm not saying anything," he replied. "But if I were to comment, I'd just say that it really isn't your call. Teddy's a grown man. He can do what he wants, and you screaming at him only pushes him away when he probably needs us the most."

His mother's mouth opened and closed like a fish, and she seemed to deflate. Sinking into a nearby chair, she buried her face in her hands. The room grew silent, save for the sizzling of the onions as they burned in the pan, and he shook his head. His mother never had understood that she couldn't dictate their lives. Sure, what Teddy had done was stupid, but that didn't mean it wasn't his choice.

As a person who'd never had any choice about his own situation, he felt for Teddy. The man was trying to do something brave, to get this killer out in the open before another body turned up, and his mother just didn't understand. It was always the same – they knew best, screw the rest, and just shut up and take it.

"Do you ever feel like that?" asked his mother after the silence had become deafening. "That we were taking away your choices?"

James rose from his chair, setting down the empty cup. He didn't want to talk about it – there was nothing to talk about, not now after all the years in which the damage had been done. You couldn't fix a gaping wound with a band-aid, no matter how hard you tried.

"I'd better go check on Lily," he said, not meeting his mother's eyes. In his pockets, the vials clinked, and he turned away. Avoidance – he'd learned the art of it over the years, and it was one of the few things that helped whenever his condition was brought up.

They couldn't berate him if he wasn't there, could they?

"Isn't this what you always do?" she said, her tone bitter. "Run rather than let us help?"

The words stung at him, and as he reached the kitchen door he looked over his shoulder. She was sitting at the table, her expression defeated, her eyes rimmed in red, but he didn't feel sorry for her. Not this time – he was done blaming himself for their lives being hard. He'd never asked to be this way, and it wasn't his fault that the years of knowing he was the only one he could depend on had turned him cold.

It was theirs. Whether it was Uncle Percy looking at him as though he'd stepped in something unpleasant or Aunt Audrey screeching about him not caring about his health, or Aunt Fleur trying to keep him away from her children for fear of his episodes. It had been Uncle Ron never understanding that this wasn't his fault and his father shipping him from shrink to shrink to _fix_ him, never realising that he wasn't broken.

It was the world that looked down on him, the world and his parent's fame. Had they been normal people, he doubted that the entire wizarding populace would know about his disorder. There wouldn't be furtive looks as he walked into a store or loud whispers about what a nutcase he was. His episodes wouldn't be so highly publicized, and he wouldn't be laughed out the door of every job interview he'd been to.

These were the bitter, monochromatic colours he'd been asked to paint his life with, and yet everyone expected him to create a rainbow. What was it they said? A lifetime spent in silence, afraid to say something wrong? That was his life, every morning and every night, forcing him to walk with his shoulders hunched and his hood up. Why show his face? So one more idiot could get in his face about him being a danger to society?

He realised, then, that he was tired of bottling it up. He was tired of shouldering the weight that shouldn't even be on his shoulders.

"You asked me if I felt like you took away my choices?" he said. "All the time." With that he turned and left, clenching his fist as he heard his mother's sob.

(Because, the sad truth is they've never been helping him – only setting their own minds at ease by blaming it all on him, the boy who'd play at being a knight.)

 **.o0o.**

"It is a terrible thing for a mother to bury her son," said Molly, clasping her gnarled hands upon Astoria's shoulders. "Know that my prayers are with you."

"As mine are with you and your family," replied Astoria, her lower lip trembling. "George was a true friend of me and my family."

The elderly woman nodded and drew herself up to her full height. Letting out a rattling breath, she leaned upon her walking stick and made her way to the third row, her shawl fluttering around her in the chill breeze. Astoria stared after her, wondering if she would look like that now that she too had lost a child. Already, she knew that she wore her sorrow like a veil, and she doubted if ever she would be able to let go of it.

In the distance rose the Manor, her home since she had married Draco, and if she didn't know any better, she would say that the house itself was in mourning. The white walls seemed a little greyer, the windows murkier, the gardens wreathed in shadow. She felt weak in the knees, her world swimming around her, but she steadied herself.

She could not give herself to grief. Her son had hated it when she cried – she needed to remain collected and give him the dignified funeral he deserved.

"Perhaps you should sit, Madam Malfoy," said a voice, and she focused, looking up. Before her stood Hermione Granger-Weasley, and she could see the concern in the other woman's eyes. Still, she did not respond, merely nodding, her throat so constricted she could not form words. Hermione seemed to understand, taking her hand for a moment before making her way to her seat.

"She's right, you know," murmured Daphne who was standing beside her. "Go, people will understand if you're not here to greet them."

"No. I can do this . . . for Scor," she managed, swallowing. She blinked away the tears, and then she saw the coffin and was lost. Had her sister not been standing beside her to catch her, she would have fallen. It rose into view above the nearby hill, the casket sealed as she had wished it – her son had been a beautiful boy, and she did not want people's last memories of him to be of a slashed face – and held aloft by six people. Five men and a woman: Albus, her son's best friend and her son-in-law, along with the boys who'd grown up with him, Delphin Zabini and Xavier Avery. On the other side stood Katherine Avery, her sister's daughter and the token girl of Scor's inner circle of friends, followed by Teddy Lupin and . . . Blaise?

"Where's Father?" asked Cassiopeia, coming up beside her and wrapping an arm around her. Her little girl – not so little anymore, she realised – was shaking almost as much as she was, but yet did not need support to remain standing. It was strange, her having to rely on her daughter for support when it had always been the other way around.

"He went to Scorpius' office today to try and see if there was something the Aurors missed," said Theo Nott, holding onto Daphne's hand. "I'd have expected him to be back by now."

Cassiopeia gasped and clenched her fist. "I'm going to find Harry – tell him to send a few Aurors to check. There's no way in hell that Dad would miss the funeral because of a hunch."

Astoria nodded, numb, as she was coaxed into the front row. Then, the coffin was before her, held aloft by series of levitation charms above the freshly dug grave, with the shrouded headstone behind. To the left rose the graves of Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, to the right the ground where she would one day be laid to rest. The tears spilled, then, when the reality crashed into her.

Here she was, her hair not grey, and her son was about to be placed into the ground. It was such a sharp knife, the curse of a short life, but it cut more than the deceased, choosing instead to repeatedly stab those left behind. She could see it in her daughter, in Lily, in Daphne, in Albus, Xavier, Delphin, Katherine, Blaise . . . in everyone who had been touched by the light that was her son.

Now it felt like there was a hole where her heart had been, one that would never be filled. It would remain, a gaping, raw-edged void, and she would wear these scars for the rest of her life.

 _Draco, where are you? Please, I need you._

Then, she ignored the world and focused solely on the funeral, wiping her eyes every few minutes into her lacy black handkerchief. When, eventually, the coffin was lowered into the ground, covered in white roses and golden lilies, she let out a choked cry.

Taking a deep breath and ignoring the comforting arm upon her back, she got to her feet as the earth filled in the ground before being covered in a marble plinth, etched with a silhouette of her son. She did not look at it. The sight of him hurt too much.

Instead, she lifted the shroud upon her son's headstone – and screamed.

Written in red – God, please let that not be blood – were the words: _Rest in Peace, Draco Malfoy._

She screamed, dropping to her knees, unable to breath. Around her, the sound of chaos filled the air – Hermione screaming almost as loudly as her, Harry barking orders at the Aurors, Pansy trying to explain what was happening to the people in the back row. She saw Cassiopeia faint, Albus rushing to her side, and then hands were on her shoulders, shaking her.

"Tori," said Daphne. "Tori, breathe."

(Take care when it is revenge you seek, for it be not one but two graves you dig.)

The rest of the evening was a blur. Harry was asking her questions, most of which she was incapable of answering, and the Aurors were scouring the country. Her heart thumped in her chest when Daphne tried getting her to come home with her – as if she would leave the Manor at such a time. By nightfall, there was still no sign of him, and she feared for the worst.

Somehow, she didn't hurt. No, her heart had already been broken, and this just stung the pieces.

So, she let herself be led to her bedroom when the clock struck nine. When the light switched on, however, her entire world faded to black as she fell into her sister's arms.

There, on the side of the bed that was her husband's lay her son. His lips had stretched back, revealing his gums, his skin tinged blue, his eyes sunken in his sockets. The smell was sour – decomposition having set in – and when she caught a glimpse of the ruin that had been his body, she realised where her husband was.

(He screamed, his throat raw, his voice hoarse, and pounded his bloody fists against the solid wood, even as the air grew thin. As it turned out, though, six feet of earth was quite effective in muffling sound.)


	5. Serpent in Eden

**The Things We Do For Love**

"Don't wait up for me, Hermione," said Ron, leaning in to kiss her on her cheek. "We'll not be back until Teddy's trap works." Her husband walked out the door and she flicked her wand to lock the door, activating her wards in the same breath. Then, when she was sure he had left, she sank into the chair and buried her face in her hands.

"Draco," she whispered. "Why didn't you listen?"

Despite knowing that there was no way for her to have rescued Draco from his coffin, it didn't dull her pain. Another murder had been committed, this one right under her nose, and the salt was being rubbed into her wounds. With Parvati and Verity, she had not felt the loss so keenly, but with the others . . .

She bit her lip to keep from sobbing. This was not how their story had been supposed to end. George, Scorpius, Draco, Verity, Parvati – Death had come from nowhere and taken them from the world, leaving behind voids that nothing and nobody could fill. This was not war, where such things made sense.

No, this was just madness.

It was ironic, though, that Draco Malfoy, whose business conglomerate had been built upon a successful apothecary founded in France prior to the reign of King Francis, had been found with traces of Draught of Living Death. She had originally thought it a blessing that he had died whilst under its influence, unable to feel pain or panic, but that hope had been quashed when she'd seen the scratches within the coffin.

The killer was a sadist, taking pleasure in their deaths, and toying with their last moments. It sickened her, bringing to mind the debaucheries of Bellatrix Lestrange, who like a cat, had played with her food before eating it. For a brief moment, she allowed herself to blame the dead witch, imagining that it had been Bellatrix all along, her heart pumping nothing but spite and malice.

"Don't be an idiot, Hermione," she said to herself, shaking her head. This was just life and in life there would always be monsters lurking in the hearts of people. She'd seen it over her long career, in mothers who'd drown their children and fathers who'd beat their families. The demons were always there, taking root within them, and try as she might, she could never truly eradicate it from the world.

There will always be darkness in the world, just as there will always be light to hold it at bay. Where had she heard those words before? Perhaps Dumbledore, she thought. The late headmaster had a knack for delivering quotable lines, after all.

The wards around her home shifted, silently alerting her to a person walking up to her front yard, and she was on her feet in an instant. She raised her wand before her, creeping forwards, the words of a curse upon her lips, and cautiously glanced through the peephole.

Hermione breathed a sigh of relief as she unlocked her door, mentally disarming her wards for a moment to let her visitor enter.

"Oh, it's just you," she said, ushering in her guest. "Do you have any idea how dangerous it is out there?"

"It's always dangerous to be out alone at night," replied the visitor. "The past few nights have just been worse than usual."

Hermione shook her head, not wanting to argue. Instead, she simply reset her wards and locked her door once more before heading to a nearby closet. Fishing out a bottle of bourbon – it had always been her guest's favourite – she filled a glass near to the brim before passing over the bottle.

"Don't look at me like that," she said, frowning. "It hasn't been the easiest of days." Sipping at the rich liquor, she brushed a few loose strands of hair out of her face. Wryly, she realised that there were shoots of grey appearing amidst her bushy, brunette curls, and she sighed.

When had she gotten so old? She could still remember the years that had passed her by with perfect clarity, as if they had happened just yesterday, and yet, she had never felt so worn as she did today. After all she had done in her life, all she had sacrificed and accomplished, it didn't feel right that this was happening to her family now.

Had they not earned a respite from pain and suffering, or was it to be a constant in her life until the day she died?

"It's understandable," replied her visitor, pulling Hermione from her thoughts. "You loved him once."

Hermione looked up, her eyes narrowed, and opened her mouth to speak. No sound came out, though, and she was left with her jaw hanging agape, unsure of how to proceed. That . . . that had been so, so long ago – how did her guest know about that?

"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone. We all have chapters that are better left unpublished."

"How . . . how did you know?"

"I spoke to him a few days ago. I'd always suspected, given how close the two of you were, but when he told me that he'd gotten permission from you to go after the killer, it all clicked. You'd never break the rules unless it was for a person you loved."

"You know me too well," said Hermione, her heart beating in her throat. "I did love him a long time ago, but, I loved Ron more. Draco Malfoy will always be the road not taken for me, but looking at the life I've built for myself, I don't regret not running away with him at all."

"Who would have thought you such a romantic?" said the visitor. "Running away together; such a pleasant daydream."

Hermione smiled, and her stomach let out a low growl. Shaking her head, she asked, "I'm going to make a sandwich. You want one?"

"Bologna and cheese, if you have any," replied the visitor.

Hermione nodded, turning away and busying herself at the counter. A few quick flicks of her wand had the bread spread out across two plates, the bologna and cheese slices floating out the fridge, and the butter knife trimming off the crusts. She'd never really liked those – and neither had her guest.

"So, I wonder, did you really give Draco your blessing to go out and get his revenge, knowing he wanted to kill?"

Hermione took a deep breath. There was no point in hiding it now, for her hand had already been shown and her guest seemed to have guessed everything else.

"I did." She paused before adding, her voice laced with venom. "Whoever is doing this deserves death. Never did I think I'd say such a thing, but I mean it. The killer deserves to die."

(Take care, Hermione. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.)

"I noticed that all of the killings have something to do with what happened at Malfoy Holdings that day. This sounds silly, but maybe you should just drop the investigation. The more people who get close to finding out the truth, the more people die."

"You know I can't do that," replied Hermione, raising an eyebrow. "It's stupid – whatever the reason, this monster must be caught and stopped, even if I have to be the one who has to do the killing."

"I'm begging you because I care about you." Her visitor sounded anxious. "I don't want you to go the same way as Draco and George."

"Your heart is in the right place but your mind is not. I fought a war once, and one of the things I learned is that only blood can pay for blood. Taking revenge may be a hollow victory, but it's a victory nonetheless, and you prevent so many others from meeting the same fate as those who came before."

"Even if that meant it would me who has to die?" asked her visitor, and Hermione's eyes shot open. Her fingers tightened on her wand and she made to spin around as the sound of shattering glass echoed in her ears.

(The broken bottle that had once been filled with bourbon dug into the back of her neck, and her walls were painted in a rich shade of red.)

 **.o0o.**

"This is a grave mistake, Harry," she said, shivering in the chill air. Her expression grim, she fingered the tarot cards within her pocket, ignoring the way he jumped, startled, as she made her presence known.

"You shouldn't be here, Lavender," he replied without ado. "This is an Auror investigation."

She stared at him for a moment before shifting aside her fringe, tucking away the strands that obscured the left side of her face and revealing her scars. He winced – everyone did, even though they'd seen it before – and she raised an eyebrow.

"Once before, I went to war on your behest. The least you can do now is listen to what I have to say," she said, her voice cold, as she stared at the towering building standing before her. Her shawl fluttered around her as the wind increased in speed, its chill kiss raising the hairs along her arms. It was in the air, already, the sensation of dread – and the cards had already spoken.

The Angel of Death walked the streets, even now, and she feared. When the candles burned that night, the windows had burst open and a deck of playing cards had scattered, leaving all but one upon the desk. The Queen of Hearts had lain there, staring up at her, before being caught by the wind and fluttering into the flames.

Lavender did not understand the premonition, but she knew enough to know that this place would soon be the scene of great tragedy. She had seen as much in the ashes of the card – fluttering pieces of ash and smoke, coalescing upon a ring of embers. For the longest time, she had ignored the vision. That was, until she had heard the news that Teddy Lupin had called out the killer.

A showdown between two great powers – the Angel of Death and mortal men – could cause such devastation, and as was most likely, such a fight could scorch the land.

"I have seen the outcome this operation, and it ends in blood, Harry. Your blood." Her words chilled her even as she spoke them, and she continued, fighting to keep her voice from wavering. "I saw your wedding ring fall to the ground, scorched and crusted with blood."

Harry looked at her, his eyes widening at her revelation. For a brief moment, she saw a dozen emotions flicker across his face. Scorn, fear, determination, terror, sorrow, spite . . . they came and went so fast that, later on, she would be sure that she'd imagined them, but see them she did. In fact, from the way he paled, she was certain that he believed her, deep down.

After all, his life had been shaped by prophecies, and it would be foolish for him to discount hers.

Then, she saw a new emotion take form: resolve, and she knew breathed a sigh of despair.

"You said yourself that the gift of prophecy is not a clear one, Lavender," he said, not unkindly. "Every seer in the world could look at one and decipher it in a different way."

"I came to you when this began, Harry, and warned the Aurors then. I was right then – even if I had not yet worked out the meaning of my cards. Parvati was named for a Hindu goddess, Harry – and my cards did not lie when they saw her paths cross with the Angel of Death."

She felt hollow as she gave voice to her own thoughts. Was she at fault for her best friend's death? Could she have interpreted the cards better and prevented it? Looking back, she did not think so, given how vague her premonitions could be, but the thought was still lodged within her mind. Why had she not picked up on such an obvious hint?

Why?

Why?

Why?

Harry looked at her for a full minute, and she welcomed the pause in their conversation. It gave her time to think, to work out what had gone wrong, even as he placed a hand onto her shoulder. Comforting though it was, she had not come here for forced platitudes. She'd come to avert another tragedy – to try and redeem herself for not protecting Parvati.

What good was her ability and knowledge of the art if she was not able to save the ones she loved?

"Lavender, I appreciate your concern, but I will not be alone tonight. This place is swarming with Aurors and there's no way a killer is going to get through us all. Trust me, my old friend, nobody is going to die tonight."

Once again, she sighed. Realising that this was getting her nowhere, she took a deep breath and turned on her heel, her hands clenched into fist. There was darkness in the air – she could feel it, and she could not shake the feeling that the ring she'd seen had been Harry's. Silver and gold, a plain band without adornment, had fallen from the sky.

It had been his, of that she was certain. There was nothing she could do, though, seeing as her warning had fallen on deaf ears. Perhaps, at the very least, he would be on his guard and that would make all the difference – but she doubted it. There were too many unknowns still circling, too many daggers within the dark. On days like this, she wished that her gift was not so fleeting, that she could be a true seer like her mentor, Trelawney, and not just catch glimpses of preordained events. Drawing her shawl around her to ward of the chill, she let herself sink into the suffocating darkness of Apparition and shook her head when she felt her heels click against the tiles of her front porch.

The spirits that guided her hand did not lie, and she knew, in her gut, that this night would end in tragedy. She only wished that the tides were turned, and that the only one who died would be the killer, and not another of her friends or family.

 **.o0o.**

"Strange," said Cassiopeia, inspecting the stonewashed denim jacket slung across the chair. "I don't remember you wearing this." Her eyes were heavy and red-rimmed as she held up the jacket for her husband to see, and had she not been under the influence of several vials of Calming Draught, her fingers would be shaking.

Usually, she was not one for self-medicating, but in the wake of the gruesome tragedies that had befallen her family she felt that she had no choice. It was either the potion or spending the day curled up in bed, sobbing into a pillow, and she would not let herself carry herself in such a way. The loss of her father and brother weighed on her, but they would not want her to collapse under its strain.

She had to go on living, for them, and cleaning the bedroom she and her husband used whenever they stayed over at the Manor was perfect was the best way to numb herself. Focusing on their cluttered closet and untidy shelves helped her more than she could have hoped.

"That's not mine. It's James'," said Albus, looking up from the small pile of parchment that had accumulated on his desk. Her husband looked tired – so tired – with bags beneath his eyes and his hair more dishevelled than ever. She sighed – her husband had taken a lot of weight of both her mother and herself by stepping in to manage the family business in the wake of the tragedy, but she could see the toll it was taking on him. He too was grieving, and yet he was doing the best he could to help her mother and herself.

"Why's your brother's jacket in our room?" Not too concerned about it, she set it aside, when she heard the clink of glass. Raising an eyebrow, she reached into the inner pocket and extricated a trio of vials, and frowned. "And what, exactly, are these?"

"He loaned me the jacket the other day when I went to visit," explained Albus. "A bit chilly, you know, and I offered to take a stroll to the garage down the road to pick up some beer, so he just tossed me this jacket, and you know James. He keeps his potions in all his coats and stuff so they're on hand if he ever needs them."

Cassiopeia nodded, accepting the answer and placing the vials back into the pocket and carefully folded it before setting it on the window seat. Looking back to her husband, she made her way to his side and looked over his shoulder, wrinkling her nose as the ledger. Filled with cramped, sometimes smudged numbers, it had to be a nightmare for Albus, who had never been one for numbers in the first place.

"Put that away," she said, her voice soft. "I'll look over it in the morning."

"I'm fine," replied Albus, inclining his head to look up at her, but she did not miss the way he sank into her arms. Leaning into him from behind, she leaned in to press a kiss against his brow, and forced a trembling smile to her face.

"You sure?"

When he nodded and turned back to her work, she went back to her cleaning. Heading for the closet, she realized that she'd already finished the drawers, and turned her attention to the hangers. Shifting aside her husband's blazer, one of his suits, and then a black cocktail dress that she was sure didn't fit her any longer, she caught sight of a flash of emerald-green. Almost instantly, she had doubled over, the Calming Draught's influence smashed asunder by her grief, because the dress she now held had been the one she'd worn to her seventeenth birthday ball.

The dress that she'd worn when her brother had led her down the winding staircase into the ballroom.

The dress she'd worn whilst dancing with her father in the opening dance.

The dress she'd worn when, too exhausted to stumble upstairs to her bedroom, she'd let herself be carried up by her brother and then tucked in by her father. _My, my, baby sister, aren't you getting heavy,_ Scorpius had teased. _You'll always going to be my baby girl, Cass,_ her father had said before kissing her on her cheek.

On her knees, she sobbed with her face buried in the skirts of gown, never once thinking how absurd it was for her to have become so emotional at the sight of a piece of clothing. The memories were a part of this dress, a reminder of a happier time, when she'd still had them both.

Then, Albus' arms were around her and she let herself sink into his embrace. She shifted so that he was cradling her and squeezed him so hard that her own arms hurt, her tears running down his bare chest and causing her platinum-blond curls to stick to his skin. He rocked her back and forth like a child, and he stroked her, even as she knew her nails were digging into his back.

She had known – dammit she had known that they were gone. She had seen their bodies, she had understood that they were dead and that they weren't coming back. Why, then, had it taken the sight of a dress of all things to break her? Why had it been something so normal that had driven the message home?

Her body was like rubber as she felt herself being carried to their bed and set down. He never let go of her, though, no matter how awkward it made for him to manoeuvre onto his side, and then he tugged the thick blanket over them both as, silently, he held her and listened as she cried, screamed, and begged for him to bring them back.

(Albus felt his wife's body tremble in his arms, and his heart broke as she begged for the one thing that he could not give.)

 **.o0o.**

"We're about to close down for the night, Mister Weasley," said the annoying woman, tapping her foot against the floor and raising an eyebrow. She didn't look like much – probably just another one of those clerks that worked for the various Auror Divisions around the world who acted as though they had more authority than they did. Please, he'd been doing his job long enough to learn that their only skill involved bossing around others and being bitter.

"That's fine. Fran and I shall be here for the rest of the night. Lock us in," replied Hugo, looking at her with an indifferent expression. He smirked, taking care to draw attention to his badge, just to ensure that she got the message. The only people with the authority to order him around in this country were his mother and the Minister.

Though, his mother's authority came more from the fact that she'd given birth to him and not from her job.

"I can't lock two strangers in the Auror Division." The woman sneered, though he could see the hesitation in her eyes. He masked a chuckle – it was times like this that he was glad off the Guardian's notoriety.

"Madam Vane," said Francesca, smoothly stepping in – something he found a little irritating, to be honest. There was no need for her to intervene, considering that no curses had flown. He could understand her desire to avoid conflict, but this was just him doing what he always did.

Reminding people that it did not do to stand between a Guardian and their assignment.

"Hugo and I still have to finish this autopsy and review our findings, not to mention go over whatever evidence was recovered from the crime scenes. We want exactly what you want, which is to put an end to these murders, and the only difference is that we're rather more skilled than the common Auror. Besides, Madam Granger-Weasley has already given her blessing for us to assist in this case, so long as it provides results."

The clerk lady twitched, her expression inscrutable, before she let out a snort and left. Her footsteps echoed through the empty hallways, until at last Hugo heard the clear sound of the doors locking, and felt the wards set around him. How interesting – he'd met drug dealers who lived in boxes that had better security.

These defences seemed more of a deterrent than a preventative, something he found odd considering his mother ran this department. Perhaps she'd had to dumb down her spells for clerks such as this Vane.

"Would it kill you to be nice to them once in a while?" Francesca asked, turning back to the body.

"I learned long ago that being nice gets you killed," he replied, taking a seat at a nearby table and flicking his wand to summon the evidence bags.

"You've grown so cold since we first met," she noted, which he found ironic considering the way she so deftly flicked the scalpel over the corpse. He pictured his sister, Rose, and how squeamish she'd get if she had to do such a thing, or even his bolder cousin, Lily. Most women tended to shy away from dealing with the dead, and yet, Fran was an expert in the matter.

He in turn remembered the way she'd thrown up on the first day of their training, when he'd been grudgingly informing the trainees of how best to dissect a brain.

Perhaps, they both had changed, but in ways that they themselves could not detect.

"We had to cut away parts of who we were to become the people we are," he said, noting the way she hesitated at his words. It was just for a second, but it was enough for him to pick it up. Filing it away for later, he turned his attention back to the blood-stained hunk of concrete that had killed Parvati Thomas.

Rose had been a bridesmaid at Parvati's son's wedding, he remembered, and he had been sneaking drinks with Louis at the bar until Uncle Percy had dragged them over to their mothers. He clenched his fist – this was why he hated returning home. It was the reason he always turned down assignments that would take him to Britain. It made him softer . . . made him lose his edge.

"Don't you find it strange that the killer is murdering in such a . . . Muggle way? Knives, concrete, and burying people alive? You'd think a killing curse would be sufficient?" he asked, more to himself than to his girlfriend, but she answered nonetheless.

"You remember Nicaragua?"

"Strange, I'd consider this case similar to Siberia."

"Well, yes, but what I'm getting at was that in Nicaragua, that child-smuggling trade were very creative in how they disposed of the bodies. Point being –"

"The Killing Curse is effective but it isn't a good outlet for their rage. Getting creative gives them that satisfaction," he finished her sentence, cottoning on to her train of thought. "So, whoever is doing this probably has a grudge, and since this all started that day in Malfoy Holdings, it's probably something to do with–"

"No," she interrupted. "They're trying to hide what happened. If this was a grudge, then there'd be more dead bodies in this place. Think about it. Scorpius Malfoy dies, but Verity Holmes sees something. She goes to George Weasley and they both end up dead. Then, there's that break-in at his shop – I'm thinking the killer was making sure there was no more evidence in George's office – and when Parvati went to investigate, she was killed. Your sister was Scorpius' secretary, meaning she definitely would know what went on in his office . . . and then, lo and behold, she wound up being stabbed. Then, the day Draco goes to his son's office to search for clues, he gets buried alive."

"Something happened that day," agreed Hugo, the gears of his mind whirring. "But what? For someone to be willing to kill to keep that secret – it must be huge."

"That or the culprit is a highly disturbed individual. We've seen it before, remember, in Greece?"

"Killer without a conscience? That girl was a special case, she killed anyone that she believed was getting in the way of her happiness – there are dozens of people who manage their conditions without turning to murder."

"Still, it's best to look into every angle," said Francesca in a voice that left no room for arguments. "Look, I know that it's a sensitive subject for your family, but we have to consider it."

"Let's find some proof before we go about accusing people, alright?"

He turned away, running his wand across the block of concrete. The tip pulsed with blue light, casting his face and the table in an ethereal glow, as he scanned the weapon for anything that may give him a hint as to who had held it. From what he could tell so far, it wouldn't take a lot of strength to lift, but it would take quite a bit of force to kill with a single blow. That said, he believed that magic had been used to increase the strength of the blow, and was now searching for the remnants of the spell.

Chances were, he'd be able to glean a small fragment of the magical signature, and that would put him that much closer to ending this madness.

He was distracted from his task by a sharp beeping, and looking up, he saw that the test Fran had been set up in the corner of the room had finally been concluded. The glass vials and tubes were clear, and below, a sheet of parchment was rapidly being filled in with a minute, clinical scrawl. Draco Malfoy's blood reports – perhaps, finally, they had a solid clue.

Fran picked up the parchment, her eyes scanning the page, and she raised her eyebrows.

"What is it?" Hugo asked.

"Hugo, this is a diluted version of the Draught of Living Death. Auror records shows that it's prescribed to people suffering from mental illness." Francesca looked up from the samples, her face grim as she continued,

"Combined with their daily potions, it doesn't actively harm their body or knock them unconscious, but on a regular person like Draco Malfoy? One vial and he'd be unconscious for hours."

"I think it's time I had a talk with my mother about obtaining an arrest warrant for my dear cousin James," said Hugo, ignoring the way that, as if on its own volition, his fist clenched.

 **.o0o.**

He came to with a groan, his body aching.

The room around him was dark, lit only by a pair of fluttering candles, but through his other senses he could make out that he was bound. Slender cords bit into his wrists, and there was a piece of cloth stuffed into his mouth. He gagged, trying to spit it out, only to find that it was tied around his head as well, effectively making removing it without his hands impossible.

"So, tell me, Teddy, how'd you know it was me?"

The voice shifted constantly, one moment gruff and the next melodious, and he cursed. The last thing he could remember was leaving his penthouse and walking to the nearest Apparition point – then, there'd been a flash of red light, and he'd woken. Glancing to the left, he realised that the windows had been blacked out, but the light of the candle, he could make out where he was.

The office of Scorpius Malfoy.

"I'd ungag you, but I can't trust you not to call for help. There are Aurors outside. They're not really trying, though, seeing as they didn't even notice me drag you in through the front door."

The figure stepped forward and his eyes widened. How . . . how could he not have seen it before?

"You!" he spluttered, the word garbled by his gag.

"So, you were lying on the radio. I thought so. Silly of you, because I really couldn't take the chance."

"You know," continued the killer, perching on the desk. "I don't want to have to do this. I didn't want to kill poor Verity, but she made the mistake of sticking around when she should have left. She's to blame for George, you know. If she just kept to herself, he wouldn't have died. I'm not going to Azkaban because of Scorpius getting what he deserved."

Teddy pretended to listen, rolling over to look the killer in the eye. Behind his back, though, he began to slowly decrease the size of his hands, hiding his smirk as the ropes grew slack. It would seem that the killer hadn't factored in his abilities, and that would make getting the upper hand all the sweeter.

"I'm going to try not to take too much pleasure in this, but I think it's time I sent a clear message. I don't want to have to keep killing – you're my family, after all, and you know how much I love my family. If they just stop digging, just give up and go on with their lives, I won't have to stop them trying to guess my name."

Teddy looked up, wondering what the killer was trying to say when, suddenly, a wand was being directed at him, and the killer had whispered, " _Crucio._ "

Pain – it was as though he'd swallowed a vat of acid which was corroding his insides, and he howled through the gag. He writhed upon the floor, his back arching off the ground, and he clenched his fists so hard that his nails drew blood. The curse seemed to go on forever, and by the time it was over, he could barely move.

"You know," said the killer, "I suppose I could let you live if I just drive you insane. You wouldn't be able to spill the beans, and you'd live . . . _Crucio._ "

If possible, the pain felt worse this time, prickling and stabbing at his every pore. His hair flashed a dozen colours a second, his eyes changing shape so fast that his vision blurred, and when it ended, he could not fight the sobs. Tears stung his eyes as he curled up on the ground, thoughts of escape forgotten . . . and then he felt a bone crack in his shoulder.

The killer smiled, getting up off the desk and heading for the door. A trio of bone-crusher hexes struck Teddy just before the door swung shut, and he yelped, feeling the splinters stab into his flesh. He groaned, shivering, and then dragged himself to the door.

It had been difficult, but he'd managed. By morphing his nervous system so that it never took the brunt of the torture for too long, he'd been able to stay sane. Just. He'd felt how close he was to snapping, to becoming just another person stuck in St. Mungos, and it had terrified him.

Now, though, he knew who the killer was, and if he could get out of this building he was sure he'd be able to reach the Aurors outside.

("Ron, take a team and scout Diagon. I'm heading to Malfoy Holdings – the Aurors aren't responding to my patroni.")

Teddy dragged himself across the floor, his body protesting every movement. His vision swam whenever his broken bones were jostled, but he powered through – he could not give up now, not when he was so close.

He had to make it. He had to tell Harry the name of the killer. Then, this would all have been worth it.

He reached the door and, retching, he strained to reach the door handle. Almost there, Teddy thought, just a bit more. He fumbled, broken fingers screaming as he struggled to open the door, and then, only then, did he notice that the door was locked. Gritting his teeth, he did his best to slam himself against the door, but it was in vain.

Secured and bolted, most likely, he realised, as he dragged himself into a sitting position. Surely the Aurors were on their way. He'd be fine, and with luck, they'd be able to recover some trace of his attacker beneath his nails.

This would not be in vain.

Then, he saw it ticking upon the bookshelf and the blood drained from his face.

(Harry arrived just in time to see the last bits of debris rain from the sky, along with a single, scorched, silver ring which had once carried the engraving of a wolf.)

 **.o0o.**

Victoire doubled over, the skirts of her dress sopping wet, and shrieked for her aunt.

"Merde," swore Gabrielle as she entered the room, her apron covered in flour. "The baby."


	6. I Bleed When I Fall Down

**The Things We Do For Love**

"Has anybody told Victoire?" asked Louis as he walked through the fireplace, running a hand through his sleep-tousled hair. The jeans he was wearing were far too long to be his and his jumper scratched at the bare skin beneath, but he simply didn't care. The news had come in a rushed Patronus, and he'd barely paused to wake Joshua before rushing for the Floo.

"Your parents left for France an hour ago," replied Lily in a dull, emotionless tone. Sitting curled up on a sofa, she didn't even look at him. Instead, her eyes were fixed upon Nana Molly's clock, watching the hands spin from place to place. "She's in labour."

"Labour?" he spluttered, blinking. He needed to sit down, he thought, and then find a bottle of something strong. "The baby's coming _now?_ " Merlin and Morgana, it was as though they were all mere marionettes dancing to the strings of a demented puppet-master, whose penchant for the dramatic was costing them everything.

The last thing his sister needed now was the news that her husband had been murdered.

"Mom said that they're going to break the news to Vic once she and the baby are safe," said Dominique, who Louis had not noticed. Looking up from the loveseat he'd staggered into, he saw his cousin sitting at the table with Richard's hands in hers. Before he could reply, the fireplace erupted into jade flames and Lucy walked in with Lorcan on her arm, looking very much as though she had also rolled right out of bed. Dressed in a fluffy pink robe, she barged past him, muttering about needing caffeine, and she had barely left the room before the fireplace burst into another bout of flames.

"I'm sorry, but did Nana Molly plan another family gathering for those members of this family who are still alive or is the entire fucking showing up to mourn my sister's husband whilst she gives birth. Oh yes, I forgot that nobody told her that her husband just got blown into so many pieces that they can't even find a bloody finger," he roared, completely losing his cool. He understood the Potters – they had helped raise Teddy, after all – but other than that, it should be him and Dom here for Victoire. Why were they intruding? Why was this even a course for a congregation?

"Louis, breathe," said a voice from behind him, and he felt firm hands upon his shoulders. His eyes sparked with fury, glittering silver embers igniting within the deep blue, but he took a deep breath nonetheless. "Calm down," continued Albus, looking him in the eye. "We're all hurting, okay, and before you go postal, think!"

"You see Fred over there? He just lost his father. Cassiopeia? She lost a father and a brother. Rohan? His mother just died. Grieve for Teddy, and your sister who's in labour with no idea that he's dead, and for their son that will never know his father. Grieve, but don't forget that Teddy meant something to every single one of us."

"He was a brother-in-law to you," said Lily, her voice like shattered glass. "He was a brother to James, Albus, and I."

Louis looked around the room, his eyes still sparkling, but he could feel his rage disappearing. These people – who bickered, and fought, and tore holes out of each other's hearts whenever the opportunity presented itself – were all bound in one crucial way. They were a sprawling, dysfunctional forest rather than a clean and orderly tree, but they were family, and it was strange that the one thing that seemed to have brought them all together under the same roof without a shred of hostility – other than his own explosion – by grief and loss.

When the fireplace roared to life again, he didn't so much as contemplate a complaint as he took a seat cross-legged on the rug, seeing as all the chairs and couches were already occupied. Nana Molly peered in through the kitchen door, her spectacles askew, and the frail hand upon her shoulder could only be that of Gramps. He did notice, however, that there were faces missing from the throng. Aunt Hermione, Uncle Harry, Uncle Ron – probably all still at the scene of the explosion – to say nothing of Hugo, Rose, James, Roxanne, and a fair few others.

He looked to where Nana was staring, and saw Uncle Harry dust the soot from his clothes. Never had he seen his uncle so grim, but there was a weakness about Harry Potter that he'd never seen before. It was as though one of the foundation stones his uncle had built a home upon had shattered, and it filled him with trepidation.

What in the name of Merlin's sanctified dildo had happened now?

"Early this morning," Harry began, and Louis felt his eyes widen. That was the voice his uncle used to talk about the worst of cases – the tone he saved for press conferences when he had no choice but to discuss the most gruesome of crimes – and for him to be using it now spoke volumes. Then, Harry's voice cracked, and the Head of the Auror Department was on his hands and knees, tears dripping from his cheeks.

"Hermione . . . we . . . Ron . . . in her kitchen . . . found . . . blood . . . Hermione . . . bourbon. She's dead. Hermione's dead."

Now, the world truly shifted beneath him, and had he been standing, he was sure he'd have fallen. It could not be, the truth of his hearing must be deceiving him, because Hermione Granger-Weasley could not be dead. She just couldn't.

The anguish he felt was no different than what he'd felt when confronted with the other murders, but this time, it was laced with shock. Verity had been a family acquaintance, nothing more. Scorpius, Parvati, and Draco – he'd never really known them, but he'd felt the pain of the loss through the broken hearts of those they'd left behind. Uncle George and Teddy – he felt their pain like a sharp knife through the heart . . . but Aunt Hermione.

Intelligent, somewhat bossy, and without a doubt the most compassionate woman he'd known, she had always been present. She was the one constant – the one person everyone had always gone to for advice, because she'd understood and accepted without reserve. Unyielding in her fight against injustice, inflexible in her stance against those that tried to bring evil to their world . . . Aunt Hermione was the last person he'd have expected to have become a victim of these murders.

By the reactions of those around him, he was sure that they had all come to the same conclusion.

He opened his mouth to state the obvious – because dammit, what if the killer was in this very room, planning the next murder while pretending to grieve with the rest of them. This was Hermione – and judging by what Harry was saying, she'd been killed in her own kitchen with her Wards still up.

She'd known the killer. She'd welcomed her murderer into her home and let her guard down, because only a dagger in the dark could have taken down one of the greatest witches to have ever lived. It was ludicrous to think otherwise. There were so few who could have challenged her in daylight and won, and even then, a victory against her would have been a lucky shot on the part of her opponent.

But, before a sound could leave his mouth, he heard the scream. On his feet in an instant, he drew his wand and barrelled towards the sound. It seemed to be coming from the garden, and the voice was familiar.

"No!" He heard another voice, equally familiar, yell out, and saw a flash of orange light from between the barely parted curtains. Aiming his wand at the door handle, he cast a nonverbal unlocking charm, and yanked it open.

Louis burst out the backdoor with half his family hot on his heels, and he felt his stomach clench into an iron knot.

Upon the grass below the apple tree lay Roxanne, her throat slit, her fingers twitching. Beside her knelt James, his eyes wide and terrified, his clothes splattered red, with her head in his lap.

Though, Louis wasn't looking at either of them. No, his attention was to the knife in James' hand, the blade slick with blood.

("Beware the poisoned apple," murmured the medium, wrapping her shawl around her as she flipped the cards. "Beautiful to look at, yet rotten to the core.")

 **.o0o.**

The interrogation room was grey and plain, adorned with little more than a table and two chairs. Across from him, the wall was a sheet of dark glass that promised privacy, but he knew better. There were likely a pair of Aurors on the other side, watching his every move, though, he thought it to be a bit of a waste.

It wasn't as if he would suddenly decide to break into a musical number about his supposed guilt. Perhaps they expected him to start tap-dancing on the fucking table, wave about an oversized candy cane, and declare that his mental condition had led him to murder a few people.

Irritable, he tried to make himself comfortable whilst waiting for his father. Surely, considering the man had raised him, Harry would be able to sort out this whole mess, get his statement, take off these handcuffs, and let him go home.

For Merlin's sake, how could he have killed Roxanne when he'd been the one to scare off the attacker with an _Incendio?_ Did they think he could be in two places at once? Why the hell had they arrested him in the first place? He was ready to tell them the whole story right there in the garden, and James didn't want to hear any crap about him making a break for it. There had been dozens of people with their wands trained on him – running would have suicide.

The door slammed shut and he looked up, frowning when he took in the rotund Auror who walked in. All belly and no neck, this man had more chins than a Chinese phone book, and yet, James couldn't help but squirm as those piggy little eyes bored into him. Behind him stood a tiny woman with frizzy hair, and she carried a typewriter.

These people realised that they could enchant quills to record the entire conversation, right?

"Mister Potter," said the Auror, taking a seat. "Do you have anything to say before we begin the questioning?"

James took a deep breath, glancing at the woman who'd set up shot at the end of the table and brought a stool into existence with a flick of her wand. Brown eyes and wild, dark hair – the resemblance to his cousin was uncanny, but he had to keep himself together. If he let himself show how he felt – now, in front of these people – then they'd just ridicule him as always. People always did when his feelings came into the picture, so he'd learned long ago to conceal, to not feel, to not let them know.

And, even if he could still feel Roxanne's blood gushing through his now clean fingers from when he'd pressed them to her throat to staunch the bleeding, he couldn't let them see how shaken up he was. He couldn't . . . he'd break, and then they'd just dismiss him as a loony – just like they always did.

"Where's my father? He's Head Auror. I want to speak to him."

"I'll be asking the questions here, boy." The Auror's voice was hard, his fingers linked together. "Do you really think we'd let your father interrogate you during a murder investigation?"

"Well, considering–" began James, only to be cut off.

Will you give your statement under the Veritaserum?"

"I would if I were able."

"I see. Bethany, note that the suspect has refused Veritaserum."

"Look," interjected James, glaring at the man who seemed evident on twisting his words. "I can't take Veritaserum of the potions I take to manage my disorder. Or are you trying to get me to poison myself?"

"What an interesting excuse. Would you then, Mister Potter, consent to the use of Legilimency against you during your questioning?"

"Yes," he said, nodding. "I can do that." He met the man's eyes, frowning when he felt a needle poke between his eyes. Of course, there was nothing there, but the pressure was building, and even as he opened his mind as best he could with his limited experience in the Mind Arts, the pressure only intensified.

Then, he yelled, yanking his shackled hands to his temples in an attempt to keep out the icicles thrashing about his skull. A second later, he was fine, and the Auror had cocked his head, looking at him with a raised eyebrow. He shuddered, gasping for breath, his eyes wide as he realised what the man had done.

That had been on purpose. It . . . Aunt Audrey had used Legilimency on him before when she'd been working on the right potion dosage for him, and that had never happened. That . . . that Auror had just taken the opportunity to rampage around his mind like a wounded dragon, clawing at his consciousness, and had it been longer, he doubted he'd still functional for the rest of the interview.

"You . . ." he croaked, swallowing in an attempt to wet his throat.

"Interesting," noted the Auror, "Due to complications brought on my Mister Potter's mental condition, Legilimency is not effective." James made to protest, but no words came out as the Auror leered at him, and the clicking of the typewriter keys echoed in his ears.

"Why did you kill Roxanne Scamander?" asked the Auror.

"I didn't." He managed to say, his voice sounding strange to his own ears. It was almost pleading. "Water . . . can . . . just a glass?"

"We can arrange for refreshment once we've concluded, Mister Potter," said the Auror, sternly, but with a hint of malice in his voice. "Now, what do you mean you didn't kill her? You were seen by thirty-seven witnesses holding the body, and the knife was in your hands."

James glared, swallowing again to no avail, and tried his best to reply. "Saw . . . attacker . . . masked with a . . . black cloak. Incendio . . . too late . . . Roxanne already stopped breathing."

(The man rose, looked at his watch and smirked. "Six hours, Mister Potter – that took so much longer than expected. I'll get you your water now.")

 **.o0o.**

"Mom," he said, looking up and not caring how hopeful his voice sounded. "Can . . . can I go home now?" His hands shook, rattling his cuffs, and his heart beat just a little bit faster as she took a seat across from him and reached out to him. Soft and supple, he palms pressed against the back of his hands, stilling them, and then she shook her head.

"Why?" she asked, looking at him through red eyes. "Just tell me why?"

James yanked his hands back as though burned, his eyes widening as he looked at the pitying expression in his mother's eyes. Was she being serious? Then, he laughed, a bitter sound to his own ears, and he shook his head.

It didn't look good for him, did it? Why wouldn't she think that he was the killer? Hadn't she been the one at home during his earlier years, in that dark time before he'd been given his prescription? She'd seen him at his worst . . .

But, he thought, narrowing his eyes, she had also seen him at his best. She'd seen his grins – rare as they may be – when he'd graduated Hogwarts and when he'd been able to afford his own flat. She'd been in the bleachers in his third year when he'd scored five goals against Slytherin, and when Madam Hooch had needed to take seven months to recuperate from a flying injury, his mother had been at Hogwarts in her place, and had chaperoned at the Yule Ball when he'd had his first kiss.

She'd teased him mercilessly, and the memory was so alien to all those memories that had come after his diagnosis that they stung at his chest.

"Are you really going to sit there and ask me that?" he asked. "When I was a scared kid, you were the one who told me it would all be fine. You were at home while Dad was at work saving the world, and you saw what this _curse_ did to me, and I know that being my mother has never been the easiest job in the world, but you were there. It was annoying and it made me so angry that you always tried to control me, even if I knew it was just your way of helping, but you were still there, and despite that, you still think that I'm a murderer."

"I just–" Ginny swallowed, blinking and reached out for his hands once more. His expression set, he stowed them beneath the table, and she sighed. "I . . . I was there, even when you weren't grateful, James, but I still saw things. Our old owl? You – I saw you put her in the oven after she pecked you, and I buried that poor bird in the garden and kept that secret for you. You're a sweet boy, Jamie . . . but I . . . this illness changes you."

James kept silent, even as tears pooled in the corners of his eyes. He remembered the owl. He hadn't meant to – he'd just been so angry, so, so angry and he hadn't been thinking. It wasn't his fault, Aunt Audrey had said in one of her rare moments of kindness, because he hadn't yet been on his potions.

Without them, he couldn't control his emotions. He couldn't balance out his anger with restraint. He couldn't temper his happiness, nor could he keep sadness from spiralling into depression. Manic episodes were a part of him – of who he was – and he'd hated the fact even as he accepted it, but evidently, his parents hadn't.

"I didn't kill anybody," he said, looking her straight in the eye. "I was with Albus the night Parvati died! I was with you and Lily when Draco was put into that coffin. Are you telling me that, in addition to being a lunatic, you think I can be in two places at once?"

"Your brother believes you're innocent, but he also says he left your flat for about a half-hour to go on a beer run. I told the Aurors you were with me that day, but the casket was sealed at dawn. You only arrived home at nine. I want to believe you, son, believe me I do. I just . . . everything is pointing towards you."

"You're supposed to believe in me. I'm your son."

"I want to, James . . . I do, and I love you but–"

"Look me in the eye and tell me that you think I killed my own uncle. Look me in the eye and tell me you believe I murdered my cousin."

Ginny looked at him, opening her mouth but not making a sound. Then, her cheeks wet with tears, she got to her feet and walked out the door, but he could hear her muffled sobs from the other side of the door well enough.

Closing his eyes, he realised that he hadn't had the chance to take his potions since the day he'd been arrested. Two days now – could that be why he was feeling so erratic? He'd never been so candid with his mother before, but, and he dreaded the answer, could it be that he was losing control once again?

Rocking in his seat, he realised that he'd have to ask the next Auror to walk in the door for a dosage, and there was no way they could refuse. Despite everything, his father knew that he needed them to stay sane, and wouldn't deny him if he put in the request. It was a medical reason – wasn't it?

You still had your rights when you were a suspect, right? They couldn't keep him from his medication, could they?

When the door swung open, though, he'd barely been able to open his mouth before two Aurors grabbed him by either arm and marched him out the door, and by the grim expressions they wore, he knew where it was he was being taken.

(They said that hell burned with eternal flames. That was a lie. The real hell was soaked in salt water and rose from the depths of the North Sea.)

His heart sank.

 **.o0o.**

He stood in the doorway, staring at the three-quarter bed he'd slept on since he was old enough to no longer need a crib. Pale-blue sheets trimmed in snowy white, and stormy-grey pillows, it looked just the way he'd left it when he'd first left home, right down to the signature pile of comic books sitting on the bedside drawer.

His mother had kept this room clean and orderly, yet hadn't moved a thing, as if she'd been waiting for the day he'd come home. Fist clenched, he felt an unnatural wetness in his eyes, and dug his nails into his palms to keep from shedding a tear.

Guardians did not mourn, he told himself in a stern, albeit weak, voice. They took revenge.

"I'm sorry I didn't visit more often, Mom," he said, slowly moving towards the desk, noticing an empty mug and an album for the first time. Picking up the mug, he paused, noting the stain of muted red lipstick on the rim, and one quick sniff was all it took to confirm the owner. His mother always had liked her coffee so strong that it made mere mortals vibrate.

"Did you sit here in my old room often, waiting for the day I'd come home?" he asked, his throat constricted like a vice. Home had been a weakness, a distraction, something he'd tried to forget in his years as a Guardian. Now, as he picked up the album, one he didn't recognize, he wished he'd never left.

Could he have saved her if he'd been home? Or, at the very least, could he have seen her more often in the days leading up to her death? Was she even proud of the son who'd turned his back on home to hunt the monsters who walked this world on two legs?

His hand shivered as he set down the album and drew his gun from its holster, deftly removing the magazine. The silver bullets glimmering in the late afternoon sun, but the tips – red rubies which pulsed with light – were what made them special. Stunning Curses woven into their very design, these could stop a suspect cold even if they just nicked the skin. These, those, were not what he wanted.

No.

Reaching into his coat, he drew out his shrunken magazine belt. Tapping it with his wand, the belt expanded, laden with a double set of each type of bullet he needed. The amethyst and platinum Sectumsempra? Perhaps . . . Or maybe, the gold and garnet Confringo? No, that wouldn't work unless he was planning on demolishing a building.

Then, he looked to the end of the belt and his mind was made up. No, not the emerald and iron – the Avada was too good for this son of a bitch. His choice, instead, was the brimstone and steel. So long as this bullet was inside whomever he shot, there'd be no end to the pain.

"Revenge is never the answer," he heard a voice, forged from memory, and he sagged into his seat. His gun fell from his hands as they went slack, her voice in his ear almost too much for him to handle, and thanked Merlin that the gun was not loaded at the time.

A soft breeze ghosted across the table, fluttering the sticker on the cover of the album.

Hugo paused before opening it, and his eyes were drawn to the side-by-side photos of his sister and himself, both still swaddled in those white baby blankets the Healers used at St. Mungo's , and below, captioned in his mother's neat scrawl.

 _Rose Granger-Weasley. Hugo Granger-Weasley_

 _Your first breaths took mine away._

He dug his nails into his palms until they bled, but the tears ran, hot and salty, down his cheeks.

 **.o0o.**

"Here," said the burly guard, his voice gruff. Without another word, a bundle of grey cloth was tossed his way, but he couldn't catch it without shifting his hands from their position between his legs. Not that it mattered, he thought, glaring as he crouched down to pick up the jumpsuit with one-hand. They'd already gotten to have their fun in _searching_ him for contraband, but he wouldn't give them any further pleasure.

The scratchy fabric did little to take away the feeling of the latex gloves that had pressed into his body, forcing his hands into the air and his legs apart – just to ensure he wasn't smuggling in drugs or a blade, they'd said, which he doubted. Other than having spent close to three days in a holding cell at the Ministry, he'd been nowhere since his arrest, so the notion of him being able to hide anything on him was ridiculous.

No, these were just sick fucks that enjoyed having power over people, of humiliating and dehumanising them until they were shivering messes huddled on the floor. It had been apparent since he'd been the Aurors had ferried him to this island, dropping him off with the warden without a word.

"C'mon, boy," barked the guard, grabbing him by his arm and tugging him along, barefoot, out the room. James remained silent, gritting his teeth at the duo of female guards who'd watched his humiliation with hungry looks on their faces and jeers escaping their lips.

He shuddered at the thought.

"Oi, Barker!" yelled the burly guard when they'd reached the stairs. A few minutes later, a tall, blond, blue-eyed man came into view. Looking like the fantasy of many teenage girls, Barker seemed to be scrutinizing him, and James didn't like that look one bit. Then, he felt a shiver run down his spine as the other man smirked and reached out to grab him by the scruff of his neck.

"Well, if it isn't the Potter brat," said Barker, tugging him up the stairs at a brutal pace and causing him to scuff his toes against the rough stone. "I've been waiting for you to get tossed in here – can't believe it took them eight murders to realize you were a danger to society." Nails dug into the back of James' neck, but he kept his face emotionless, even as Barker added, "Cat got your tongue, nutter?"

James kept silent, refusing to rise to the bait. The hand upon his neck tightened its hold, and he winced, sure that there would be bruises there the next morning. Taking a deep breath, he walked on with his head high, not wanting this Barker to have the satisfaction of seeing him break. When, eventually, they reached an empty cell, he felt his stomach twist into a knot.

Was this is? A bed that reeked of mildew and a dented metal toilet were cramped into the dank cell, with walls that were covered in grime and rough floors slick with Merlin knew what. A tiny slit was cut into the wall, barely letting in any light, yet managing to fill the room with salty sea-spray all the same, and on the floor was a battered tin cup and a pitcher than looked as though it hadn't been cleaned since the prison was first opened.

"I didn't do anything," he croaked, finally snapping at the sight of what was to be his new home. "This isn't right."

"What's that, nutty?" asked Barker, voice tinged with glee. "Feeling chatty all of a sudden?"

"I didn't do anything," repeated James, still staring at the cell as the bars scraped open, and his legs seemed to have turned to stone. He couldn't move – didn't want to move. He was innocent. He hadn't killed anyone. They couldn't just lock him in _that hell._

Barker shoved, throwing him off balance and he careened through the air. Flinging out his arms to catch himself, he felt the skin on his palms get scraped raw against the rough floor, and then the bars clanged shut. He turned, eyes wide, and Barker leered at him before disappearing from view.

Gritting his teeth and blinking to banish the tears which stung at his eyes, he forced himself to his feet and staggered to the bed. The mattress was lumpy and damp, but he felt too numb to care. They'd actually done it – his own parents had locked him away for something he didn't do. Up until this point, he'd believed, deep down, that this was just a scare tactic to get him to confess.

He'd thought that by standing strong he'd show them he was innocent. Naïve, he was so naïve and stupid. It didn't matter if he was innocent, he realised – perception was reality, and to his family, he'd always been the lunatic.

"Oh, look at James," he murmured, "He's had to drink those potions since he was fourteen so he doesn't end up cutting his wrists again. He needs to drink them to sleep at night. Leave your brother alone, Al, Lily, you don't want to upset him and start him on one of his episodes, do you? I really think I should write Hogwarts and ask that he be taken off the Quidditch Team – it isn't really safe for him to get excited. Albus, keep an eye on your brother if he's ever in Hogsmeade – we wouldn't want anything to bother him."

He fell silent, his throat constricting as the tears ran down his cheeks. Fists clenched, he buried his face in between his knees and hugged his legs, shivering as a blast of chill air gusted in through the slit on the wall. Without thinking, he let his hands fall to where his jacket pocket usually was and froze.

"HEY!" he yelled, nearly slipping as he rushed to the bars. "HEY!"

It must have been an hour before Barker loped into view, a wicked grin on his face. James had long since gone hoarse, his throat feeling dry and cracked, and his palms were bloody from rattling the rust-covered bars.

"My potions," he rasped, not caring how pitiful he must appear to the other man. "I need my potions."

Barker looked at him and shrugged before reaching into a pocket and extricating two small vials, and for a moment James felt a surge of relief. Then, the bottles were tossed through the air to crack open upon the floor of his cell, and he could only stare after his jailer as the man walked away, whistling a merry tune.


	7. Tell Me I'm Safe, You've Got Me Now

**Chapter Seven**

"James? Are you shitting me? They arrested James?" Louis jumped at the sound of his boyfriend's voice, and he looked up from his seat on the couch just in time to see the front door slam. Shaking his head, Joshua tossed his bag onto a nearby armchair, and turned to face him. Dark-ringed eyes narrowed as the older boy folded his arms, tapping his foot on the floor before adding, "Seriously? They think James is the killer?"

Louis sighed as he leaned back into the plush armchair and reached for the half empty box of cigarettes on the end table. Tapping the tip with his wand, he lit it and took a deep drag, wincing at the acrid taste. It had been pure chance that had led him to buy the box on his way home from work that afternoon, but for some reason, he'd been drawn to it.

 _We all get addicted to something that takes the pain away,_ James had told him once, when he'd just been a second year wondering why his cousin would indulge in such a fatal habit. He hadn't understood – hell, he'd never even thought about it until now – and there was no denying that it was somewhat soothing.

Even if it did make him want to cough out his lungs at the same time.

"Will you answer me?" yelled Joshua, "And since when do you smoke?"

"Since half my family were brought home in body bags," he retorted, taking another pull of the cigarette. It went down easier this time, and the burn was almost mellow as the smoke billowed out his nostrils. Running a hand through his messy blond hair, he continued,

"They're holding him in Azkaban. We saw him . . . Josh . . . he was holding the knife, and Roxanne was bleeding out on the ground. Last week, I'd have told you that there was no way my cousin would be the killer, but today? I'm just not so sure anymore."

"I am," said Josh. "I lived with James for seven years while we were in Hogwarts. He isn't a killer."

Louis remained silent and looked away, his knuckles white as they dug into the couch. With his other hand, he set the cigarette – still burning – down into the ashtray. He felt himself tremble, his knees knocking against each other as he brought them up to his chin, and there was no response he could make to his boyfriend's assertions.

He could only listen, because, truly, he wanted to be persuaded. He wanted nothing more than to believe that James was innocent.

"Yes, he may be a bit of a cynical asshole, but when we were fourteen, he found out that I was gay. It wasn't a big bonding moment, because it was just him stumbling across some Muggle porno magazines whilst trying to get one of his potions vials back after it rolled under my bed. And I was terrified, because you know how school works. When you're the one being teased and tormented, it always helps to spread some fresh gossip. James was always the one being shunned, the one being called a nutter, being tripped up in the halls or having his things stolen. He could have taken that heat off him if he told everyone that I was gay. He didn't. He kept my secret safe until I was ready to come out of the closet, and I refuse to believe that he's a murderer."

"I never knew that," said Louis, his voice soft as he met his boyfriend's eyes. Josh seemed to soften before coming over and slinging an arm around him, pulling him in so that Louis' head lay on Josh's shoulder. He shuddered, and he realised that there was nothing that needed to be proved.

It was James. The cousin who hadn't blinked an eye when Dominique had announced her intention to marry a Muggle, who had clapped him on the back and had whispered his congratulations after Louis had come out of the closet. This was James, who'd been the best man at Albus' wedding, silently supported Hugo when the man had wanted to join the Guardians, and held Fred back from beating up Merlin knew how many morons.

James, who was kind despite his pain, who loved despite his loathing, and who cared despite his isolation. The mere thought that this man could have killed . . . it was preposterous, no matter what the evidence said. It simply couldn't be.

"If it isn't James," he said, slowly, "Then who do you think the killer is?"

"You have any clues?"

"Nothing other than what we read in the papers. After what happened to Aunt Hermione, the Aurors in the family aren't saying a word regarding the investigation. Now, though . . . I haven't seen any of them since James was arrested."

"James might know something."

"Fat chance of speaking to him while he's being framed, Josh. Azkaban doesn't exactly have visiting hours unless you're a lawyer, and last I checked, you're a Healer and I'm a journalist."

"He's not guilty, though. I mean, I just remembered that he couldn't have killed George because he was on a date."

"He doesn't date, genius," replied Louis, almost instantly cottoning on to what his boyfriend was getting at. A dangerous gambit to be sure, but he was tired of sitting here and waiting for the next body to turn up.

He may have seen the bloody knife, but he remembered that yell and flash of orange light. If, and his Veela senses were tingling in agreement, James had simply seen what had happened and tried to scare off the real killer? If he'd tried to help Roxanne and stop the bleeding?

It all made sense, and the puzzle pieces were falling into place. Josh's unspoken plan was sounding better and better, especially since it seemed that the Aurors were doing such a horrible job that a journalist who hadn't even been penned a story yet had been able to deduce what they had not.

"Rare one night stands aside, James doesn't date because of what Alison and what she did. But, he could have very well been visiting an old friend who'd wanted relationship advice." Louis cocked is head, a smirk playing across his lips as his words seemed to spark a fresh set of thoughts in his boyfriend's mind.

"Who's going to buy that? I see the man at Weasley gatherings maybe two times a year. Your birthday and Christmas, when you drag me over."

"You have other friends, sure, but only one of them is my cousin. I mean, what if you just called him over to talk about me because you wanted to get back together."

"My word alone isn't going to be enough."

"Well," said Louis, "What if I came here that evening after leaving Grimmauld, because I missed you and wanted to work out our problems, and ran into him."

"Which was when things got awkward between us, and we insisted he stay as a buffer."

"And the next day, when he was gone, I finally had the guts to come over and, well, we both know where that led us." Louis grinned. "Honestly, are we really going to perjure ourselves to weaken the case against him, because I can think of about a hundred different ways that this can blow up in our faces?"

"He's innocent, Louis. We both know that. The only reason he's in there is because people are horrified, terrified, grieving, and looking for somebody to blame."

"I know," said Louis, "But, before we do anything, I have one question for you."

"What's that?" asked Josh, raising an eyebrow.

"Does conspiring to outsmart the law with me turn you on as much as it does me?"

 **.o0o.**

Her pancakes were topped with syrup and fresh berries, and yet each bite tasted like boiled cardboard. Her coffee, usually so strong that it would make normal people vibrate, was as bland as water. Setting down her fork, she pushed the plate away because there really seemed no point in wasting her morning pushing her breakfast around the plate, and leaned back in her chair.

Tomorrow, there would be another funeral at the Manor, and she was doing all she could do to avoid thinking about it. The last time there'd been one, she'd watched while they'd dug her father's corpse out of her brother's grave, and it made planning a burial all the worst.

She had just put down her mug – Grandmother would be beside herself at the sight. She could hear Narcissa now, berating her for not drinking out of a teacup with a matching saucer – when she heard the fireplace in the living room burst into flame. Fingers latching onto the handle of the wand, she sat upright, and cast a wary eye at the mirrored refrigerator.

Despite the living room fireplace being a direct connection to the homes of just a token few which the family trusted, it was ridiculous to take chances. With the other, more public access, fireplace located in an antechamber currently sealed off, there was only a handful of people still able to access Malfoy Manor, but recent events had proven she could not be trusting.

"Cass!" called a familiar voice, and she let out the breath she hadn't been aware she was holding. "Where're you at?"

"In the kitchen, Xav," she replied, "Is Kat with you?"

"Please, I basically had to drag him here," retorted Kat, coming into view and dragging her husband in by the tie. Cassiopeia frowned at the sight, not knowing what to make of it. Whilst it was common knowledge that it was her cousin, Katherine, that wore the pants in the relationship, she could safely say that she'd never witnessed her drag Xavier anywhere.

Unless one counted Hogwarts, in which he'd been dragged off whenever the mood was struck.

"Now," said Kat, nudging her husband. "Tell her."

"I really, really don't want to," he said, folding his arms and fixing his wife with a glare. "Did nobody ever teach you that it's rude to speak ill of the dead?"

"The difference being is that this time, speaking ill of Scorpius might actually help solve his murder," retorted Kat, before turning to glace at Cassiopeia, an apologetic look in her eyes. "Yeah, sorry to just spring that on you, but I thought it best to tell you before we go to the Aurors."

"What the hell are you to going on about?" asked Cass, ignoring the fist that had grabbed her heart. Her gut was a coil of molten lead, her throat constricted, and her anguish was counterbalanced only by her irritation. Really, she loved the two of them to pieces, but could they just get to the point? If they had news about Scorpius that could solve his murder and help put the killer behind bars – she'd heard James had been taken in, which was about as preposterous as her taking up a career in pole-dancing – then they should just spill.

Bickering wasn't going to bring her brother back, but it may help her husband's.

"Scorpius . . . he was . . ." began Xavier, glancing at Kat. The dark haired woman shrugged, but she looked pained as she gestured for Xavier to finish. Impatient as she was, when Xavier spoke again, Cassiopeia wished that he'd kept silent.

"He was seeing someone else."

"No." Cassiopeia gasped, eyebrows disappearing behind her fringe. "No, my brother was not that kind of person."

"You were his sister, Cass," replied Kat, not unkindly. "You always saw the good and not the bad in him, but Scor was never the kind to be monogamous. We were as surprised as anyone when we heard that he'd proposed to Lily, and we thought that he'd finally settled down."

"So, when I found out a pair of panties in his office, and he confessed they weren't Lily's, I gave him a thorough tongue lashing," added Xavier, "And when he was murdered, the two of us kept quiet on the matter because, well, he was one of our best friends. We – I didn't want to dishonour his memory."

"You have to go to the Aurors," managed Cassiopeia, interrupting Kat when she opened her mouth. "You did it out of love and I can't fault you, but the Aurors need to know. If he died because of the bitch he was screwing on the side, then I want her in chains." Her chest heaved and tears glimmered in her eyes, but when the other two seemed to want to say something, she waved them away. "Leave," she said, "Go to the Aurors."

Katherine looked at her for a moment more before placing a hand on Xavier's shoulder and shaking her head. Speaking goodbyes that Cassiopeia did not hear, the pair left the room, and it was only then that Cass buried her face in her hands. Being strong in the face of such a revelation had sapped her of what little strength she still had, because it went against everything she knew about her brother.

For him to be a cheater? She shook her head, banishing the thought that clouded her mind, the thought that asked if she'd ever really known Scorpius, because it was a stupid one. She knew enough about her brother to not let his memory be tarnished by this, because Scorpius was a good person. Yes, he'd made mistakes, but he was still her brother.

She blinked away her tears and got to her feet. First, she needed to go to the Headquarters of Malfoy Holdings and speak to her husband, and then they needed to see what they could do to get James out of Azkaban.

Because, at the end of the day, James seemed to be the one framed, and that meant he could well be the key to ending this madness.

 **.o0o.**

He looked at the documents in front of him, not willing to believe what he was reading. A transcript of his son's interrogation – Merlin, why had he not at least been there as an observer – and whilst that did make his blood run cold, it was nothing compared to the file sitting beside it. Auror Reeves had been the one doing the interrogating . . . or so the file would indicate, though the roster beside it showed, quite plainly, that Reeves hadn't been in to work on the day of the interrogation.

It was a clever cover up, he had to admit, seeing as the only bit of documentation to given him any indication of foul play had been the front desk register which Ministry employees had to sign on their way in. He snorted – it was an inefficient system, seeing as there were only a dozen or so clerks on duty at that desk and hundreds of employees within the Ministry itself, but after today he swore he'd never campaign for doing away with it again.

Other than Reeves, four people hadn't come in from his department, and given the knowledge the interrogator had about the department . . . it could only be one of them. Ruling himself out, that left three, each less likely than the last.

Reaching into his pocket, he extricated his Codex, wanting to deny the truth that he'd already worked out.

"Padma Patil," he said, listening to the gentle whirring as the Floo Dust activated. It rang twice before she picked up, and even through the bad connection, he could tell that her voice was strained. Small wonder, given that she'd just lost her sister a fortnight ago.

"Harry? Do you need Terry and I back in already?" she asked, and Harry clenched his fist.

"No, no, nothing like that," he said, already feeling like the most insensitive person in the Ministry for interrupting her during her time of mourning. Still, he needed to know, or at least that was what he kept telling himself.

Hearing her voice and looking at the documents in front of him, it was already clear to him who had conducted such a botch of an interrogation . . . who it was that had seemingly forced his son to take the blame.

"Are you still in India, is all I wanted to know?" he continued.

"We should be heading back in a week or so. I want to stick around a while to make sure _Pitaji_ will be alright on his own."

"Thanks, Padma. Keep well," he said, running his finger across the smooth glass to end the call. Looking into the device, he flicked upwards with his thumb and muttered, "Trace, location, last call." When the crackly, feminine voice replied, he felt as though somebody had just punched him in the gut.

"Last call traced to: Home of British Ambassador, Suraj Patil, to the Indian Ministry of Magic, New Delhi."

The words echoed in his head as he looked at the last name on his list, and with a heavy sigh, he rose to his feet and, drawing his wand, left his office. Walking through the bustling cubicles, he ducked to avoid the darting paper planes, and only stopped when he reached the office of his deputy, the one man he'd trusted above all others.

He didn't knock, opting instead to shove open the door and barge in, and it was all he could do not to curse. There, standing near the roaring fireplace, in which burned a large pile of folders, stood his deputy, his best-friend, the man he thought of as a brother.

"You framed my son," he said, not even bothering implying a question.

"Harry," replied Ron, looking pained. "This isn't what it looks like." Then, the redhead paused, as if realising what he'd just said and sighed. Shaking his head, he walked away from the fireplace and took a seat at his desk. Looking away, he reached for the photo frame he'd always kept there. "Merlin, I sounded like almost every single suspect we ever arrested when I said that."

Harry watched without a word, wondering how it had all gone to hell. For all that he wanted to yell, to tear his best friend a new one, he had to give him the benefit of the doubt. As much as he loved his son – and he did love James, whatever the boy may think – he owed it to Ron to listen to his explanation.

With a silent flick of his wand, Harry summoned Ron's wand, and the other man watched it whizz through the air without a sound. He waited for his best friend to say something, to explain what it was that had led to him becoming a murderer. When no sound came, he narrowed his eyes, and asked,

"Ron, why? Why did you kill them?"

"I killed nobody," said Ron, a flicker of guilt upon his face. "But I covered up for the killer. I worked it out when Parvati was murdered, and I've been concealing the traces ever since. What did I miss?"

"The register," replied Harry. "But, Ron, why, why are you protecting this scumbag? George is dead. Roxanne. Your own daughter was stabbed and left for dead on that very night! And Hermione, Ron! HERMIONE IS DEAD BECAUSE OF YOU!" He lost it, his lip twitching as the room grew charged with static. His hair standing on end, his eyes crackling with energy, he didn't even notice when papers began to float into the hair, followed by quills and Merlin knew what else.

"I'm protecting a murderous sociopath, I know," said Ron, placing his palm against his chest, as if to feel his own heartbeat. "But, I don't have a choice. These are the things we do for love, Harry, and I hope, someday, you'll understand."

"Understand what?" yelled Harry, grabbing his friend by the collar and yanking Ron forward until they were face to face. "He killed George! Teddy! Malfoy! HERMIONE! He killed Hermione, and you're trying to protect him!" The debris began to swirl around them like a vortex, holding them within the eye of a tornado brought about by his unrestrained magic, and he shook Ron like a leaf.

"I will drag the truth out of you, Ron. So you can tell me the name of whoever it is you're protecting, now, or I will force so much Veritaserum down your throat you drown in it. Tell. Me. What. You Know!"

"I am not you, Harry," replied Ron, his voice now deathly calm. "You threw James to the wolves when you found out there was something wrong with him. Can't blame you really, considering what a nutcase he is. But, you know, I've learned a thing or two about people who're warped around the edges, and I'm not going to be you."

"So," roared Harry, "You're going to protect the bastard who murdered your wife in cold blood?"

"Until my dying breath," replied Ron, before cocking his head. The palm upon his chest spread, fingertips as far apart as they could possibly be, and Harry watched as, with his free hand, Ron shoved him away. "I can't reveal what I don't remember."

Fingertips glowing with light, Ronald Bilius Weasley shook his head and said, " _Obliviate,"_ and Harry could only watch as his brother-in-law's eyes grew glazed and unfocused.

 **.o0o.**

The little bell tinkled above the glass door, and she looked up from behind the counter. The smell of jasmine and burning sherry heavy in the air, she flicked her wand beneath the counter to create a faint breeze. Ambiance was important, she noted as the wind-chimes tinkled above, especially in her line of work. The clientele needed to truly believe she could see the future at the drop of a hat, or else she'd be out of business before one could say Trelawney.

Truly, the future could only be glimpsed in fragments, and what was foreseen today could always change by tomorrow. That was the true curse of the Seer – nothing was set in stone, and just one pebble could divert the river of time.

The client wore large, fashionable sunglasses, a hooded coat, and had a scarf wrapped around most of her face. It must be quite cold outside, reasoned Lavender, even as the warning bells began to sound in her mind.

Tightening his grasp on her wand, she smiled, and said, "Welcome, my dear. How may I help you?" Gesturing towards her crystal ball, she tapped her foot, causing the door to the back room to creak shut as if on its own accord.

"Come now, Missus Finnigan, I've known you since I was born," said the visitor, dropping the hood and pulling down the scarf, before taking a seat across from her. "The wind is quite nippy out there, forgive me if I startled you."

"I'm surprised to see you out and about, my dear," replied Lavender, relaxing her hold on her wand. "My prayers are with you all. Teddy and Roxanne, they were far too young for such a fate, and Hermione, she was a fine woman and a true friend, even if we never saw eye to eye."

The girl stiffened, if only for a moment, and Lavender was sure she had imagined in. It must be hard to hear so many condolences, one after another, and she knew that she'd be going spare if she was in the other woman's shoes.

"Forgive me," said the girl, "My head is not quite on right – it's why I'm here. I needed to get out of the house – too many sympathy notes from strangers mourning my _loss_. I heard, however, from Hugo, that you predicted Teddy's death . . ."

"I saw the death. The scorched ring," explained Lavender, reaching out to take the other girl's hand. "I just didn't realise it would be Teddy." She sighed, her fingers already cold from her guest's touch, and she felt a shiver running up her hand. So cold – Merlin, how were her teeth not chattering until they broke?

"Did you see the killer?" asked the girl, "Please . . . I need to know if you know anything. Anything you have can be so helpful to Hugo and the Aurors."

"I've tried, believe me, I've tried. But you studied Divination in Hogwarts; you know that the future is difficult to glimpse and those visions are even harder to decipher. All I've seen are predictions of the victims. The Scorpion, referring to Scorpius, of course, as the first victim, and the Joker, which I know now meant George. I saw the inverted Goddess, and I was too late to realise it meant Parvati. That . . . so obvious in hindsight – she was named after the Indian Goddess of fertility and devotion."

"Come now, Lavender, don't be so hard on yourself. There are so many witches with the divine names – that prediction could just have easily meant the former Headmistress, and who knows how many others."

"I suppose," replied Lavender, getting to her feet. "Would you like a cup of tea? I was just about to put a pot on before you got here."

"That would be lovely."

Lavender got to her feet, and she couldn't shake the feeling of unease as she walked to the back room. The spirits were trying to tell her something, she knew, but her cards were still at the counter, and she hadn't used an Ouija board in years. Horrible contraptions, those boards, and she would love to smack whomever had invented them.

Because, unlike her cards or tea leaves, the board was an invitation, and one did not open the door without expecting something to come through.

Shaking the thought as she jabbed her wand at the kettle to boil the water, she dropped a teabag into each cup – tea leaves were for clients, thank you very much – and tried to quell the worried sensation which brimmed within her. She'd be able to consult the tarot soon enough, but just in case, she extricated her Codex from her pocket and brought it to her ear.

"Seamus," she said out loud, listening to the quiet whirring of the floo dust as she waited for her husband to pick up. True to form, he answered at the last ring, and she could hear the crackling of flames in the background.

"What did you burn down now?" she asked, raising an eyebrow and for the moment forgetting her worry. It was strange, she'd sometimes think, that no matter what was going on in her life she'd still drop it all at the slightest hint that her pyromaniac of a husband had set something new on fire.

Well, that just came with twenty-three years of wedded bliss, didn't it?

"Nothing, Lav," he replied, "Just getting rid of some dark artefacts the boys in evidence were ready to dispose of."

"So you set it all on fire?"

"I work for the Division for the Disposal of Dark Magical Artefacts, woman, how else am I supposed to get rid of all these creepy things?"

"A vanishing spell may have sufficed," she said, her tone dry. "Merlin, have you already forgotten the time you got every member of the DMLE stoned by burning all that dried wee–"

"La la la, can't hear you," he interrupted, and she shook herself. "Anyway, why'd you call? Anything wrong at the shop?" His words brought her back to reality, and she looked over her shoulder, unable to shake the feeling that she was being watched. Wary, she took a deep breath to centre herself, and replied,

"I have a very bad feeling. Something just feels very wrong."

"Are you alone?" he asked, his voice shifting to become deathly serious.

"No, no, the–" The store bell clinked, and she peered around the corner of the door, realising the store was now empty. How odd. . . "Well, I am now. That girl just left."

"What girl? You know what, never mind, I'll be there in a minute."

"Thanks, Seamus," she said, picking up her cup of tea and heading back into the store. Flicking her wand, she locked and barred the door, and erected the nightly wards despite the sun still glimmering high in the sky. She'd trust them to recognise her husband and let him through, but for now, she would remain safely ensconced within her store.

Lavender shuffled her tarot cards as she sat back down, and her fingers felt as though they were being stabbed by a thousand pins and needles as she drew the first card. Placing it down on its face, she the pins and needles intensified, before fading away, and it was only as she felt a strange numbness creep up her hands that she realised something was wrong.

This was not the usual sense of what accompanied a premonition or reading. This was – her vision blurred, the room spinning, and in the depths of her foggy mind, she recognized the effects of poison. Fast-acting and deadly, and absorbed through the skin if she remembered Snape's lessons correctly, it was not something she'd have ever expected to experience.

"Oh, no you don't," she muttered, reaching across her table for an empty phial. Eyes stinging, her vision so blurry she could barely make out her own hand, she felt her hands close around the glass as she slumped forward.

Her wand shook as she forced it against her temple, and the toxin burned her veins as she pumped the last of her magic into the spell. Throat constricting and cutting off her breath, she gagged, but managed to seal the swirl of silvery memories into the phial.

Then, the cards fluttered across the floor as she fell from her chair, the world going black around her.

(The phial rolled across the smooth wood, set into motion by her fall, and slipped over the edge. With a sharp crack, it shattered. The memories soaked into the carpet, all but one frayed fragment, which hung like a teardrop from the edge of a barbed shard.)

 **.o0o.**

Curled up in the corner of his cell, he shuddered, watching the rusted cell doors through red-rimmed eyes. He'd seen their reflection in his water that morning, and he'd all but screamed at the sight. Wild hair, matted in some places and spiky in others, and pale, bruise covered skin, he looked as though he'd just walked through hell.

The thought made him laugh. He'd laughed, cackling even, until he'd forgotten what it was that he'd found funny. His throat had grown as raw as his bloody palms – a token from the other night, when he'd spent a few hours rattling the rusted bars of his cell for . . . something, he couldn't really remember anymore – and now he just sat in his corner and waited.

He wasn't really sure what he was waiting for anymore.

Oh, yes, hell. He was thinking about taking a drive through hell.

Hell was for other people, though, because all his devils walked beside him on earth. Stomach growling and teeth chattering, he pressed himself closer to the corner of the cell, ignoring the way the rough stone dug into his back. He didn't care. Nobody else did, so why should he? He was just the scapegoat, always the odd one out, and they'd tossed him in this cell without a second thought.

"Albus didn't," he said to himself. "Mum said he didn't." Or was he imagining it? He wasn't sure, not now at any rate. Did Albus try and keep him out of here? Or had his brother just let him rot like the rest?

He forced his body against the rough stone, barely wincing as he felt it scrape his skin, and the sharp burn that came afterwards was nothing special. It was just more pain. The pain he deserved for being born broken. Not his fault that he'd been born this way, but not their fault either, and they'd had to deal with what a burden he was.

All he was, just a burden, nothing but a burden, a blemish, a broken toy to be thrown away.

Merlin, James realised, as a particularly sharp wave of pain shot through his arm. He was slipping. He'd tried, God, he'd tried to use his limited grasp of the Mind Arts to keep him safe, but it didn't seem to be doing any good. Just delaying the inevitable – like his potions, just keeping the unsafe, unhinged crazy person at bay so he couldn't mess up their lives.

Worthless, that was what he was to them, that was the word. Or they'd have helped him. Saved him. Believed in him. Not just thrown in him in here, in this cell that was his kingdom. Why? Why him? Why was it always him?

.

 _He kissed her in the pouring rain, for the moment not caring about the jeers and insults always hurled his way. In her love, he believed, in her arms, he lost himself. Just shy of seventeen, he let her give him something to believe in._

" _I love you," he whispered, rainwater running down his lips._

 _She laughed, high and cheery as her hair was plastered to his face, her lips teasing his as thunder clapped above. Eyes closed, she held onto the back of his neck._

 _Then he heard the laughter ringing in his ears, and she pulled away, her laughter turning to sharp, shrill cries of mirth. Her hands released him and she swanned away, receiving a high-five from another girl standing under the Greenhouse eaves, and he realised that, of course it was all a lie._

 _Just another laugh at his expense. Another joke in which he was the punch-line. He didn't cry, he didn't yell . . . instead, he stuck his hands in his pockets and walked away, already forcing himself to forget the three weeks they'd spent together._

 _He found the old oak near the Black Lake, out of sight of the castle, and settled down beneath it. He'd been so desperate for affection . . . that he'd jumped in without checking the temperature, and as was always the case, the pool was ice and snow._

.

"Thinking of me, Potter?" said the girl, settling down beside him, a wicked grin on her face.

He looked up and shook his head, lips trembling. She wasn't real. Just a ghost. Just another one of his devils. She looked so real though. So, so real. Just like he'd thought it was real.

"Go away, Alison," he murmured, "Just go."

He heard her laughter ringing in his ears and he closed his eyes, slamming his hands to the sides of his head to try and blot it out, but it rang on louder and louder until he found himself screaming for it to stop.

.

" _Sometimes, I think it would be easier if he wasn't our son," she said, and he heard her from his place at the top of the stairs. "Oh Merlin, I feel so horrible just saying that."_

" _He drove his broomstick through Neville's window because he failed a test," replied his father, and by the sound of it, he was pacing. "What's wrong with him?"_

" _The two of you, honestly." Aunt Hermione tutted, her voice cross. "He's just a boy who probably has no idea what's going on with him, and you're asking what's wrong with him?"_

" _In all fairness, Hermione, he is a bit of an odd one," interjected Ron, sounding as though his mouth was full._

 _At the top of the stairs, James blanched and turned away. Just twelve, and he'd already been suspended so often that the Headmistress had probably prepared a form letter for whenever he was dragged into her office. It wasn't in his fault. He'd just . . . he'd just felt so angry after studying so hard for that test. He hadn't meant to, but he'd been flying, and the office window was right there._

 _He hadn't meant to._

 _He never meant to._

.

"Come to taunt me as well," he whimpered at the shadowy visages of his parents circling the cell, always just on the edge of his vision. "Do you really hate me that much?"

"We do," they said in tandem, their voices harsh and heavy, and there were other silhouettes behind them, appearing from the shadows. He could make them out, barely, incandescent as they were. Uncle Ron, Uncle Percy, Aunt Angelina, Professor Longbottom, Professor Irene, Fred, Mister Malfoy, Roxanne, Rose . . . oh Merlin, he could hear them all.

"Waste of space."

"Born broken."

"Lunatic."

"Shut up," he screamed, his nails dragging down his cheeks. "Just shut up!"

Then, he saw his brother and his gaoler, both so much more distinct than the others, and he quailed. Not Albus, no, not Albus. His brother had always been on his side, hadn't he? Albus was always there . . . he wouldn't torment him. Not Albus.

"What the hell have you people been doing to him?" asked Albus, his voice colder than the most dangerous of curses.

"Nothing at all," retorted Barker. "We did what we was told. Hold him in a cell until his trial."

Albus looked ready to punch the other man, but he took a deep breath. James, for his part, rubbed at his eyes, and he croaked,

"Al? Is . . . Is it really you?"

"I'm here, James," said Albus, crossing the room and helping him to his feet. His body shuddered, aching and covered in dried blood, bruises, and filth, and he found himself nearly falling over as soon as he was standing. Trembling, he leaned on his brother, his eyes wet with tears.

"Easy there, Jay Jay, you're heavier than you look." Slinging a hand beneath his shoulders, Albus helped him hobble to the door, and then looked over his shoulder. "I hope to Merlin that he isn't like this because of you, because I swear to Merlin, Morgana, and the Founders themselves that if he is I will come after you with everything I have."

"What is it you have, boy?" Barker snorted, narrowing his icy-blue eyes.

"Oh, you probably didn't get the memo because I'm a dude and my last name is still Potter," replied Albus. "But I married a Malfoy."

Leaving the man to splutter behind them, James could have sang as he was guided to the Apparition point where the Aurors were waiting with his possessions. Swallowing, he held onto his brother for dear life, and just managed to whisper before his world went black,

"Thank you for not giving up on me, Al."


	8. As I Lay Dying

**The Things We Did For Love**

As he walked through the darkened zoo, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was being followed. It was disconcerting to say the least, but he supposed he was imagining things. It was probably just the animals watching him as he prowled between the exhibits, taking note of their nocturnal behaviour to compare with his findings on several magical creatures.

The wolves in particular fascinated him. Their eyes glowed at him as he circled their exhibits, their bodies relaxed as the slunk through the foliage. It was almost as though they thought he was prey, which was absurd, really. There were far too many Nargles fluttering around him for him to appear even the slightest bit appetizing to the lupine creatures.

Yes, it was probably just the animals. Who else would be here at this time of night?

Lorcan leaned against the railings and casually tossed in a steak, watching the way the wolves darted away from the meat before sniffing the air. The scent of blood had probably reached them by now, he reasoned, as he watched them gradually slink closer towards the bloody steak, until one, possibly the alpha, leapt into the air and snagged it between two layers of razor sharp teeth.

"Fascinating," he muttered to himself, "They don't seem to mind dragon meat in the slightest."

A twig cracked behind him and he jumped, whirling around and fumbling for his wand. Snorkacks, he was paranoid tonight, and for no reason. Why would a killer be after him of all people? Reading the Prophet was enough to tell anyone that as long as they had no relation to Scorpius Malfoy and Malfoy Holdings in general, you were safe.

Thankfully, he'd never really gotten that friendly with the Malfoys. Something about the amount of Wrackspurts nesting in their hair had always turned him off, and now, as bodies began piling up, he was sort off grateful.

"Is somebody there?" he called into the shadows, his eyes finding the faint outline of a grizzly in the exhibit across. The bear appeared to be padding along the stream, munching on something, and Lorcan breathed a sigh of relief.

Just the animals, he thought, it's just the animals.

Turning back to the wolves, he reached into the duffel bag at his side and pulled out a dozen or so small chunks of thestral meat. Tucking his wand into his belt, he stuck his hand into the plastic baggie and tossed the bloody chunks into the bit. He'd never really seen death, but it would seem that the thestral's magic didn't quite extend to their meat – not that it seemed to matter, given the wide berth the wolves were giving the chunks.

"Is this where you go at night?"

He jumped so high he very nearly fell over the exhibit wall, which would have been quite awful for him. Not that he was scared of the wolves or anything, but the deep moat between their exhibit and the fence itself guaranteed a few broken bones. To startled to even think of reaching for his wand, he turned, and he felt his heart rate settle down, if only a little.

"Have you been following me, beautiful?" he asked, running a hand through his dirty-blond hair. Flicking his wrist to cast the spell that had become second nature to him since their affair had begun, he blinked to clear his vision as his eyes shifted from blue to grey. She'd always liked him with grey eyes for some reason.

(In dim light, as she usually kept their motel rooms, and with grey eyes, it was quite easy to mistake him for Scorpius.)

"You left while I was asleep." She pouted, running a hand along his chest. "You usually stick around until morning so I can wake you up with my mouth." Her hand slid down to grasp his crotch, and he squirmed a little at the tightness of her grip. If he didn't know any better, he'd swear she was angry.

"Your bracelet came undone and I saw the burns on your wrist," he replied. "It looked quite bad, you know, so I thought I'd come out to get some observations done, just to let you rest."

"Ah, so you did see the burns?" she said, shaking her head. "It's nothing, really. Just a stupid hex I can't get rid of without a Healer, and I'm not going to walk into St. Mungo's and flout this, am I?"

"A hex?" he asked, and he raised an eyebrow. Really, this was just distracting him from his work, and if he didn't finish the meat tests now, he'd have to wait a month until the next full moon. Why was she talking suck nonsense, now of all times? Their relationship was a simple one – even if it was an affair – mostly because she was the type of girl who liked to do things that Lucy would smack him senseless for even suggesting.

She'd been wearing that bracelet for ages, though. Not that he wasn't against her wearing things whilst they shagged – that leather bodice she'd used that one time with the strap-on . . . now that was a fun and educational experience – but the bracelet had become a staple. A broad band of tooled leather covered in metallic designs, she'd been wearing it since . . .

His eyes widened and his breath hitched in his throat. A burn. She'd been wearing it to hide a hexed burn, and she'd been wearing it since the day Roxanne had died. He'd been there. He'd seen the flash of orange light through the window.

He'd heard James yell . . . and since the man had been ruled innocent, didn't it stand to reason that he'd just tossed out a hex in the hopes of stopping the culprit when he saw Roxanne's murder?

"You don't have to do this," he said, his eyes drawn to the wand hanging at her side. "A memory charm will work perfectly fine." He couldn't really move away, considering the way she was squeezing his balls, and even the slightest movement from him would put him in so much pain not even their safe-word would save him.

"I really can't take the risk," she said, and she clenched her fist. He howled, doubling over, bile rising up in his throat. He tried to stagger away as she released him, but then her hand was in his hair and his head was being slammed towards the steel fence.

Lorcan just had the time to realise that the railing was decorated with spiked barbs before two of them pierced his eyes in twin spurts of blood and aqueous matter.

(" _Wingardium Leviosa_ ," she said with a sigh, and with a sweep of her wand, his body had been, quite literally, thrown to the wolves.

Funny, she noted in his little journal. He was still twitching as they began to tear hunks from his legs and chest.)

 **.o0o.**

"My husband has given more to this world than anyone, Kingsley," bellowed Ginny, her wand directed at the Minister's chest. "Let his resignation stand." Sparks of magical energy crackled from the tip of her wand and danced about her hair, charging the air with static and Harry would not have been surprised to see Kingsley take a step back.

"Of course, I accept his resignation, Ginny," said Minister Shacklebolt, "But surely he can remain present until the current turmoil has been dealt with. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement is in shambles, and Harry is quite literally the only person holding it together at present. With the loss of Hermione and Ron still in St. Mungo's after that memory charm, appointing a new Head Auror could well send what little order we have left spiralling into chaos." Kingsley spoke in his usual deep, reassuring voice, but as Harry brought the bottle to his lips, he realised that it only served to further infuriate his wife.

He could put a stop to this. He could make his decision clear to the Minister, who had been brought back as Minister after a ten year interim of office, but he didn't want to. Merlin, help him, but he was tired. There was no other word to describe it. He was just tired.

"I'm sorry, but does it look like I care?" snapped Ginny, prodding Kingsley in the chest with her wand. "You have a lot of nerve coming here and asking Harry to come back to the Auror Office after everything this family has been through. Our daughter is still a wreck since Scorpius. Albus won't even look at us after what happened with James, and as for him, I can't even look him in the eye anymore. Hermione was like a sister to Harry, and even after she died he was at work trying to find the killer. I buried another brother and my husband was at work trying to solve the murder. Get out of my house, Minister, and take your Aurors would you before I curse the lot of you to the moon!"

"Ma'am, I cannot have you threatening the Minister of Magic," said Auror Smith, whom Harry recognised as one of the more recent recruits. A dry chuckle escaped his lips as he hunched forward against the kitchen table, watching the scene from a position where he couldn't be seen, and waited for the ensuing fireworks.

His wife was, after all, at her wit's end, and he'd learned from experience that her wrath was to be avoided at all costs.

"I'm sorry, I don't believe we've met," replied Ginny, her voice eerily calm, a sure sign of impending danger. "I'm Ginevra, Order of Merlin, Second Class, War Heroine, former co-leader of Dumbledore's Army, honorary member of the Order of the Phoenix, and the wife of the Chosen One. Who the fuck are you?"

"Ezekial Smith, Ma'am," replied the Auror in what was assumed by Harry to be a stern voice, but actually sounded like a child confessing to having just wet the bed. "I'm just doing my job and it is against protocol to allow threats against the Mini–."

"No, no, no," interrupted Ginny, "I have fought in more battles than you've had birthdays, so you can sit down, shut up, and let the grown-ups speaks. Do you have anything to add?" She turned to face the other Auror, who simply held up his hands in surrender.

"Now, Kingsley," she continued in a faux sweet voice. "You and I go a long way back. We fought together at the Department of Mysteries, at my brother's wedding, and Merlin knows how many other times. You officiated my wedding, and you were there for the birth of my first child. I have had nothing but the utmost respect for you, but believe me when I say that Harry has given enough for this world. He _died_ for us, Kingsley. So for love of me, my family, and my husband, I am asking you to leave."

"I understand, Ginny," said Kingsley, backing away. Harry sighed, watching as the man disappeared through the fireplace with his shoulder sagging, his wrinkles just a little bit more pronounced than they'd been when he'd gotten here. Bringing the burning liquid to his throat once more, Harry gulped down the Firewhisky as his wife came back into view, a faint, somewhat forced smile on her lips.

"How are you feeling?" she asked, reaching for an empty glass and motioning for him to fill it. Taking a seat beside him, she downed it in one, and gestured for another.

"My sons hate me," he replied, ignoring the way his throat seemed to constrict at his words. "And I can't even blame the killer because dammit, I thought James was guilty. I was so ready to assume he'd lost control and just started killing, that when they said he was going to await trial in Azkaban, I didn't even question it. And I can't even search for the actual killer because the entire department reminds me of Ron and Hermione. I feel as if I can't breathe in there, because even though my office is huge, it's like I'm in that cupboard again, with the walls closing in on me and the only light being a bare bulb."

"If it's any consolation, they hate me as much as they hate you. I basically told James I thought he was guilty when I saw him," she replied, leaning into him as she sipped at her freshly filled cup. He felt his shoulder grow wet and, realising she was crying, he wrapped an arm around her. "When did it all go wrong, Harry?"

"I don't know, love," he replied, "I'd like to think we tried our best, but when I look back, there's so many thing I'd have done differently . . . most of all with James."

"He'll always be my greatest failure in life, you know?" continued Harry, his own eyes growing wet. "I don't mean having him as a son, Merlin no – but the way I raised him, Merlin knows I could have done better. I could have been there more often, helped him, but I left you alone to deal with him while I was off on missions and assignments and raids, and I just never had time to understand him for who he was."

"I don't have that excuse," she said. "I . . . I just never understood. I still don't, and that's just all on me. At least you had work as an excuse."

"Just look at us," said Harry, clenching his fist. He'd thought that nothing bad could ever come his way again, because he'd already used up all of his allotted ill tidings that fate had levelled his way. The two of them had built a castle, just the two of them, but they'd built of glass and now it was all coming crashing down. "Do you even remember what it is to be happy, Gin? Truly happy without a care in the world because I just can't?"

"No . . ."

 **.o0o.**

When word of his father's betrayal reached him, Hugo did not head for the hospital to ensure that the man would be fine. He didn't go to the Ministry to question what would happen now, and he didn't go to the Burrow to properly judge the fallout of the latest revelation.

No, Hugo Weasley went home to the cottage where his parents had lived and raised them, because of one, simple fact.

His mother was Hermione Granger-Weasley, and if there was one thing that was certain in this world, it was that she'd instilled the need for a failsafe in all of them. An insurance, if one would, and if you knew his father – not the cretin who'd covered up for a murderer and indirectly led to his mother getting butchered in her own kitchen, but the man who'd taken him to the park and trained him to ride a broom – then he knew where the failsafe would be.

When he reached the front porch, however, he knew that something was wrong. He'd been the last person here before they'd locked up the house after his mother's murder, and he'd made sure the windows were shut. The one to his mother's study, however, swung open, the curtains flapping about in the harsh wind.

Drawing his gun and making sure the safety was off, he headed into the home. As he glanced around the corner leading into the passage, he paused, realising that he'd loaded the gun with the non-lethal _confringo_ shots. Well, non-lethal as long as they didn't make contact.

If they did, it wouldn't just kill the target . . . it would tear them apart.

"Meh," he muttered, "No more than they deserve."

Silently, he made his way to his mother's study, taking special care as he rounded corners and keeping his gun held firmly before him. In his mind, he knew that the house was already deserted, the killer having already come and gone, but that was beside the point. One could never tell what was lurking on the other side of the door, but he was certain that his bullets could take care of anything and everything that was thrown his way.

He hesitated when he reached the door, having not entered this study since he was sixteen, simply because it reminded him so painfully of the mother he'd lost and the life he'd left behind. Everything within the room was guaranteed to remind him of her – from her books, especially those original paperback copies of various fairy tales, to her quills and inkpots.

Readying himself, he opened the door.

His world swam around him as he took in the room. The bookshelves which looked ready to collapse under the weight of so many books, the little chest in the corner of her desk that he knew nobody but her could open, though shoes in the corner and the scent of her favourite perfume . . . it was too much, all at once, and he nearly doubled over in grief. He had to be strong, though. He simply had too.

Knowing where to look, he headed for the third bookshelf, and ran his finger along the spines of the various textbooks. Charms, Transfiguration, Herbology . . . aah, there it was, the lone book in the room about Divination. It was a little out of place, considering his mother's hatred for the subject, but he supposed that was the point.

He pulled on it and heard the gentle click of a lock being undone, and just as it had a dozen times throughout his childhood the shelf swung open like a door, revealing one of his mother's secret compartments. She'd always loved her secrets . . . that was something he'd grown up knowing, because as she always said, there were chapters of every book that were better left unpunished.

This compartment, though, was probably the only one his father knew about. That, and the chest on the desk, but his father would have seen the contents of what lay within that nondescript little box. He wondered what the reaction would be if his father had known about the love letters and other trinkets within that chest, or the tiny, velvet lined box containing one of the lost Malfoy rings.

It was an interesting thought that he'd never wanted to ponder, because had his mother accepted that particular proposal, there was a very real chance that he'd have never been born. He snorted – secrets and lies, that had always been her way, hiding away things that would cause conflict and bearing the guilt alone.

From the compartment, he shifted aside the time-turner his mother had always insisted she'd returned and the paperback copy of the Tales of Beedle the Bard – a book, she argued, had helped conquer Death – before he found what he was looking for. A glass sphere, whirling with memories, and a single touch helped him realise that it carried his father's magical signature.

There was something different about it, though, a tortured darkness whirling within the glass that he was unfamiliar with. It was almost as though the memory had been tortured with the cruciatus, its raw substance frayed and flayed down to the bare nerves.

He didn't hesitate to immerse it in his mother's pensieve, and with a wave of his wand, he let the spectral, washed-out image of his father float above the misty surface.

"Percy," said the spectre, "If anything should happen to me, I am hoping that this memory finds its way to you and you alone. Of all my siblings, you are the one only one who understands what it's like to do what is easy rather than to do what's right."

The image shivered, and Hugo narrowed his eyes and the image seemed to implode, collapsing into nothing but dust. Stabbing his wand into the whirling pool, he tried to extricate the single memory his father had left, and cursed aloud when he managed to pull it forth.

It appeared to be rotting, the usually silver stream now blackened in places and torn in others, and was as useless as the single droplet they'd recovered from Lavender's store. Then, it hit him, and without another word he turned on his heel and headed for the Ministry.

Uncle Percy was the next target.

 **.o0o.**

"How are you doing?" he asked, taking a seat at the foot of the bed and holding a mug filled with chicken noodle soup. Horrible stuff, he noted, compared to the rich, flavourful stuff his mother could make from scratch, but the powdered version was the only thing James was able to keep down.

And, well, he didn't feel right enjoying something more heartening whilst watching his brother's arm shake like a leaf as it lifted the spoon from his bowl to his mouth. It was a mark of how weak his brother was at the moment that James was still in bed, three days after getting out of Azkaban, and still not able to even hold a bowl without spilling half its contents.

Thank merlin for that little laptop table he'd dug out of storage.

"Anything's better . . . than . . . than being in there," James replied, a faint scowl on his face as his shirt was splattered with the soup he had been trying to get to his mouth. Shaking his head, Albus flicked his wand, charming the spoon to no longer spill what was in it.

"Thanks," added James, "I . . . I would've done . . . done it but magic . . . magi–"

"I know, James," said Albus, reassuringly patting his brother on the knee. "Don't worry about it."

Albus hated seeing his brother like this. Through everything that life had thrown at him, his brother had always remained strong in his own isolated way. Quiet and stoic, James had clung to the shadows as though his life depended on it, concealing his emotions, pretending not to feel. To see him brought to the point where, just a day ago, he'd been incapable of feeding himself . . . Albus was tempted to tear Azkaban down brick by brick with his bare hands.

"Mum stopped by today," he said. "Cass told her to leave. I'm glad I wasn't around. I still can't look at her without wanting to scream."

"You . . . you shouldn't," James murmured. "Don't . . . I don't want . . . ruin your relation . . . relationship with her as well."

"You did nothing of the sort. It was her fault for condemning you to that place," Albus replied, noting how calm his voice was. "I don't care, really, I don't. You're worth more to me than that."

"I'm touched," said James, his voice tinged with the lightest drop of sarcasm. It was enough for Albus because this was the James he knew, the caustic, cynical brother he'd grown up with. Though faint, it was still in there, and it was enough.

He knew no other word to describe it other than it being enough to just know his brother was still inside this wrecked shell of a man he'd rescued from Azkaban.

"You should be. Cass doesn't exactly spoon-feed just anyone."

"Your . . . wife is a . . . keeper," replied James, before exploding into a fit of coughs. Doubling over, his entire body shuddered, water running from his eyes. Albus reached over and patted him on the back, not knowing what else he could do, and sighed when James shook him away. It was progress, at least, but since Azkaban, his brother flinched away from every touch and jumped at every sound.

There was a part of Albus that wanted nothing more than to take on such a portion of his brother's pain, but the greater part of him knew that he would never survive it. Getting to his feet, he squeezed his brother's shoulder, not caring about the way the one man seemed to squirm away from it before turning for the door.

"If you need anything, just call, you hear me?" he said, a faint smile on his lip as he saw his brother nod. Leaving the door ajar as he left, he made his way down to the living room, grateful that his mother-in-law had sought solace with her sister at Nott Manor. He quite liked Astoria, to be honest, but there was no denying that she needed to be around people her own age to properly cope with the recent tragedies.

"James thinks you're a keeper," he said as he reached the bottom of the stairs, a faint smile teasing at his lips as his wife looked up from her book. She giggled – such a rare sound these days – and replied,

"I remember being a beater," she said as he leaned over the couch to press his lips to her brow. "I knocked you off your broom during practice more times than I can count."

"You've certainly got a few jokes to tell," he responded. "I gave as good as I got."

"Yes, I remember you throwing the snitch at me, Mister Potter. It did so much damage."

"That nickname worked better before we were married – I can't exactly call you Miss Malfoy these days, can I, love?" he asked, flopping down on the couch and laying his head on her lap. She stroked the hair out of his eyes and leaned in for another kiss, her fingers twining with his.

"I miss those days," she said, "Young and carefree, and our only worry was my brother catching us shagging in the bed next to his." Her eyes glimmered, but he watched as she blinked them away. Reaching up with his free hand to caress her cheek, he opted to remain silent and let her talk.

It was what he was good at, after all: Listening. She rambled on for a few minutes, seeming to lose herself in chatter about their teenage antics, and he smirked at some of the memories. It was a good way of forgetting the turmoil around them, a means of simply losing themselves to each other in their own little world.

So, when a half-sob, half-laugh escaped her lips, he could only stare at her, not understanding her sudden shift in demeanour. She'd been speaking about that one time about a week before Louis' birthday party when he'd been working late at the potions lab and she'd shown up dressed in a overcoat, stilettos, and emerald green lingerie.

It had been a fun night, a memory he cherished of a time before their world had gone to hell.

"I'm late," she finally said, "Oh Merlin, my period is late."

 **.o0o.**

As he walked past the graveyard, he stuck his hands in his pockets, letting his fingers curl around the handle of his wand. It was late, of course, but the desire to come here and been weighing on him for most of the day. He'd left work early, needing to get away from the hustle and bustle of the office and just be alone – the despair had been crushing him since he'd lost George.

Since the war, the brother he'd been closest to had been George. He wasn't sure how it had happened, but it was probable that between his guilt and his brother's grief, they'd sought solace in each other. He'd been there, after all, when Fred had died, and he'd had answers that George needed. Somehow, this had led to the two of them forming a bond he simply didn't have with the rest of his family, and now that was gone too.

The rest of the family grieved, but they didn't understand what he'd lost. It had been his link back to the family, the first brick in the foundation of rebuilding the relationship he'd lost when he was young, vain, and proud, and without it he felt adrift. Audrey tried, bless her, to understand and help as she could, but even she knew that there was no potion that could heal a broken heart.

With a gentle push, he opened the kissing gate, listening to the old metal creak as it slowly swung back into place. It was a surreal feeling to be in the graveyard – peaceful and tranquil, like the eye of a storm. It was a place he'd come when he needed to think, and Merlin knew that he needed some solitude now.

A chill began to creep into his spine as he made his way past the headstones, not needing to search for the grave or look where he was stepping – for he knew the path better than the back of his hands. It got colder, or perhaps that was just him, and his stomach tightened into a knot.

It was as though something was repelling him from the graveyard, but he ploughed on regardless. He held no traffic with spooks and spirits, for he was haunted enough by his own past to care about the rest.

Then, he saw her, sitting on a nearby headstone with a wry grin on her face. Auburn hair pulled into a double ponytail, face made-up as though she was about to leave for a date, his niece grinned up at him. He noted how odd her style of dress was – a black miniskirt, high stockings and heels, complete with a cropped halter top which left her stomach bare. It was almost criminal for a girl her age to be dressed in such a way – certainly Lucy and Molly wouldn't dress like that – and even odder considering the cold.

"He couldn't leave well enough, could he?" asked the girl, cocking her head to the side and scratching at her temple with her wand. "He just had to confess."

Puzzle pieces began clicking into place within his mind, and Percy felt his eyes widen as he stopped near a tall obelisk. The white marble offered sufficient cover should it be needed, and even if he hoped that he was wrong, it all made so much sense. Scorpius' affair, Hermione's ambush, Ron's betrayal, the killer who knew their every movement . . . how could it be anyone but her?

"I thought I was the only one who liked to visit Fred's grave?" he replied, his voice casual as he tried to muster a non-verbal patronus to the Aurors. A faint wisp of light escaped his wand behind the obelisk, but his owl did not billow forth. _Think happy thoughts, Percy, your wedding, the birth of your daughters, anything! Think!_

"Nana and Gramps visit quite often, but you're really the only one who spends much time here these days," she replied, licking at her cherry-red lips. Extending the lower lip into a pout, she continued, "Why won't any of you just leave well enough alone? Scorpius was a bastard and he deserved everything I gave him and more, but you people just had to keep digging."

"Is that why you killed them, then?"

"Of course," she replied. "I killed them for love – better they die than live with the knowledge that they'd condemned me to Azkaban."

"You're insane," Percy said, loudly, hoping someone would hear. He was having no luck with a patronus, and his mind was growing clouded with the sight of bodies, of coffins, of the recent grief. She seemed to contemplate him, and for a second he thought he saw a luminous blue form from the corner of his eye.

No, he had to be imagining it.

"Perhaps," she replied, "But you're dead."

Her speed and precision was something he could not have expected, but his shield charm was faster. Her curse burst against the shimmery surface in an explosion of orange sparks, and before he could recover, the shield had shattered under a volley of stinging hexes. Ducking behind the grave, he spied the ghostly silhouette once more, but ignored it in favour of flicking his wand at a nearby tombstone.

The marble rose into the air and flew towards her, and then he was out from behind the obelisk, slashing his wand through the air to counter her hexes and hurl back his own.

"Your mother thought you well." He spat, ducking and rolling across the ground to avoid a tongue of flames.

"She was the best," replied the niece, slamming her foot against the ground. A shockwave exploded across the earth, sending him sprawling over a tombstone, almost snapping his back as it slammed into the granite. _Non-Verbal. Wandless. She's good._

He staggered to his feet just in time for his wand to fly out his grasp, and he extended his arm, his fingertips crackling with whatever magic he could gather. Blinking to clear the blood from his left-eye, he spat out a bloody tooth, and hair – usually neatly combed, now wild and standing at odd angles – out of his face.

"I know the family history," said his niece, advancing. "Once again, you're all alone." Her eyes widened as she spoke the words, and Percy could only grin as the blue silhouette appeared once more, glowing at his side. No older than twenty with his usual cheery grin twisted into a malicious snarl, the ghostly figure laid a hand upon his extended arm, and almost instantly he could feel the surge of magic running through his veins.

"I am never alone," he replied. " _Avada Kedavra."_ The curse burst from his fingertips with the sound of a canon, tendrils of green energy snaking towards her from each finger, and the very air grew charged with Ozone.

" _Callista Maxima,"_ she shrieked, and her shield expanded across the graveyard. Small explosions burst across it as his curse made contract, the air filling with sparks and bolts of electricity, and he saw the cracks begin to appear across it. Had he been fighting with a wand, the shield wouldn't have stood a chance.

A blast like thunder erupted between them and he went sprawling, flying head over heels. He cleared three graves before slamming into a concrete angel, and he heard a sickening crunch as his head made contact. Dizzy, gasping for breath, he crawled forward, trying to get a glimpse of his assailant.

He tried moving his hand to his head and screamed, the pain shooting through his body enough to make him glance at the shard of bone protruding through the skin. Eye heavy, he began to drag himself towards a nearby grave . . . the grave of his brother.

He'd make it. Fred had already helped him once – for he'd recognised the spectre in those brief moments – and he'd seek solace there, beneath the headstone George had engraved. Coughing, rasping, gagging, he reached the grave, and as he rose up on his uninjured hand, he heard her voice.

"You broke my wand," she screamed, leaping onto his back and grabbing his hair. He tried to resist, to fight back, but his world was already swimming as she slammed his head against the marble. Thrice more she slammed it, and the world was all but black when he felt the knife strike him between the shoulder blades.

Again and again the knife fell, and he spluttered, only conscious thanks to the faint, steady stream of magic pouring into him from the unseen hand clasping his wrist. The killer spat into his hair as she got to her feet and stumbled away, cradling a bloody arm that looked as though a burn had been ripped open.

Consciousness fading, the world going black, he raised a bloody finger to the grave of his brother, Fred Weasley. Beneath the dried flowers, he wrote his killer's name in red, and prayed that it would be found.

 _Rose._


	9. The Original Sin

**The Things We Do For Love**

 _Her breasts were flush against the desk, his hands firm against her shoulders, his lips upon the nape of her neck. He moaned as he entered her, not waiting for her to grow accustomed to the intrusion, but instead setting a brutal pace from the start. The stench of bourbon of his breath, the empty bottle discarded on the floor, she reached around to dig her nails into arm._

 _She loved it. Nobody could love her like he did, and nobody would let him do the things she allowed._

 _Fingers carded through her hair, pulling back her head so he could get to her throat, and he marked her with his teeth. Biting down upon her love-bite strewn skin so hard she was certain that the bruise would last weeks, he slapped her arse with his free hand, almost certainly leaving an imprint of his palm._

.

She stumbled through the city, her arm hanging limp at her side and her clothes in tatters. Merlin, who knew Uncle Percy had it in him to fight like that. She hadn't expected it, to say the least – especially considering what a reserved and dignified man he was. Had she gone after Uncle Harry – which may well have to do if he keeps digging – then her bruises would have been earned.

The man could duel with two wands at once, after all.

Percy, though? Bloody hell, she'd underestimated him, and she was paying for it now. Thank Merlin it was late, because she really didn't think she'd be able to explain herself to a Muggle with her body in such a state and no wand. She needed an elixir to help restore her mana – to say nothing of the skele-grow she'd need for her arm, and she hoped she had some in her medicine cupboard at home.

There was no way she could go to St. Mungo's like this. There'd be too many questions, especially once they found Percy's body.

She spat. What a bloody tosser that man was, though, she supposed it was her fault. She could have killed him easily had she taken him off guard but no, she just had to go and get cocky.

 _._

" _You always knew that I was with Lily," said Scorpius, his voice cool as he redid his tie. She leaned against the desk, furious, and glared. A part of her understood why he was being so frigid towards her – their quickie after his meeting had been interrupted by Verity, who had forgotten her Codex or something and come back for it._

 _Through it all, Scorpius only seemed to care about precious Lily not finding out and sparing her from finding out he liked to fuck her cousin up the arse, and up the cunt, and in the mouth, on the desk, floor, shower, bed, balcony, hot-tub, pool table, and Merlin knew where else. Why didn't he care about her?_

 _She was the one who'd be ruined if this came out. She could already see the hate filled glares sent her way when they realised that she'd been screwing Lily's fiancé._

" _If you're with her, why're you screwing me?"_

" _Because I like to have me cake and eat it to, sweetheart," replied Scorpius. "Now fix your hair. We need to be presentable at the party tonight."_

.

Her fist clenched at the pain, and she realised that she was very close to her apartment. Well, just a few blocks at any rate, and had she not been in so much pain she'd have risked an Apparition. There was no way she'd risk getting splinched though – after all she'd done to stay out of Azkaban, there was simply no way she'd let herself die of blood loss on her living room floor.

She looked up, realising she was passing a building which, to Muggles, looked abandoned and decrepit. Her eyes, though, could see through the wards, and she picked up speed upon noticing she'd inadvertently taken the route that passed the Daily Prophet headquarters. The last thing she needed was for one of their scoundrel paparazzi to get a picture of her like this.

Bloody, wretched Percy Weasley. Why couldn't he have just rolled over and died like Lorcan? Why'd he have to fight like a fucking banshee?

She coughed into her hand, her entire body shuddering, and her palm was bloody when she brought it away.

.

" _Don't you love me, Scorpius? I'm more to you than just a common whore, aren't I?" she asked, grabbing him by the tie and yanking him forward so that he was standing between her legs. She nipped at his lips, tugging at the lower between her teeth and drawing blood, her hands snaking around to cup his firm arse through his suit pants._

 _He shoved her, and had she not been leaning against the desk she'd have fallen. His expression stony, he moved his hands back to his throat to redo his tie, and he said,_

" _Love, Rose? You're the most depraved woman I have ever met, and don't get me wrong, we've had great sex. But I don't love you. Honestly, I think you're rather desperate, but don't worry, I quite like the things you do with that tight little body of yours."_

 _She'd thought she was angry, but it was then that she knew true anger. It was white hot and blurred her vision, covering her cheeks in trails of salty tears, and before she knew it her hand had closed around the sharp letter-opener Scorpius kept on his desk._

 _Whirling, she rammed it into the side of his neck with as much force as she could._

" _Tell me you love me, Scorpius, tell me," she said, her eyes narrowed as she ripped out the letter opener and brought it down again, this time just above his sternum. "What's wrong, knife in your throat?"_

 _Frothy red blood bubbled from his parted lips, and his eyes were wide like Galleons as he stared at her, seemingly not understanding that he was dying. Bastard. Again and again, the letter opener came down, but it was only after the sixth stab that she wandlessly forced the blood back into his wounds, not letting a single drop spill._

 _It didn't stop her turning his organs into Swiss cheese. It just helped her keep the room tidy._

" _Say that you fucking love me, Scorpius," she shrieked, even though his body had long since stopped twitching. "Say it!" Her spittle sprayed across his face, her hair a wild mess, and she stabbed him again._

" _Just tell me," she said, her voice a little softer but still a screech. "Just tell me that you love me."_

 _._

"Rose! Rose, Merlin, what happened to you?"

She turned, mentally cursing at the sound of his voice, and forced herself to adopt a terrified expression. Eyes wide and lower lip trembling, she looked up at her cousin, Louis, as he rushed out of the front doors of the Daily Prophet, his bag tucked under his arm.

Why the fuck had he been working late tonight of all nights?

"Louis," she cried out, staggering into his arms. "The killer. He came after me. He said he wanted to finish the job. I . . . I . . . I fought him off and ran, but he could be right behind me." She sounded so sincere, that she found that with a little pushing, even she'd believe her. Letting the tears fall for good measure – not that it was hard, considering the pain she was in – she clung to the tall blond, burying her face in his shoulder as he stroked her back.

"I've got you now, Rose. Let's get you back to my place – Josh can look you over and then we'll call Uncle Harry in to get your statement."

 _(One should beware of who they trust, for even the Devil once shone as the brightest of the angels.)_

 **.o0o.**

"Let me through," she bellowed, shoving past the Aurors with tears brimming in her eyes. She'd come as soon as she'd heard, and nothing would stand in her way. Not the Aurors, not the Minister himself would be able to hold her back, for her grief was that of a mother's, and in her eyes there was no pain more severe.

For a mother to have to bury her children, one by one . . . she banished the thought, knowing she needed to hold herself together. Percy would not want to see her shatter like broken glass, no, he would want her to be strong and mourn him with the same quiet dignity he'd always clad himself in.

"Molly," said Yuna Dursley, her Auror badge glinting in the strong lamplight, as she appeared out of nowhere and placing a restraining hand against her shoulder. "Please, calm yourself. The body's already been taken back to the Ministry for an autopsy."

"An autopsy?" asked Molly, her stomach turning at the copious amounts of blood splattered about the graves, the soot-stained, cracked tombstones, and charred greenery. "I would think it fairly obvious that he lost a duel."

"Molly, we need to test for magical signatures, evidence, anything that can help us find the killer. You being within the perimeter could have already corrupted something crucial. I need you to leave." Yuna pressed, and Molly could only stare at the young girl. For a second, she was angry, ready to blast the Auror out of her way, but then she stilled.

She was only doing her job, just trying to hold together an investigation as best she could. Molly needed to calm herself before she gave herself a heart attack – she could already feel her blood pressure rising, as it had been since she'd gotten the news – but dammit, she needed to see the body. She needed to know, for certain, what she already knew to be true. She needed her eyes to tell her that Percy was gone, because until then the truth of all her senses would be against her.

"I understand," she said, keeping her voice soft. "Would it be alright for me to, at the very least, visit Fred's grave whilst I am here. I would like to speak to him . . . tell him to watch out for his brother."

"I really can't–"

"Let her through," came a haggard voice from the crowd, and Molly turned in time to watch her son-in-law push his way through. Hair now far more salt than pepper, Harry Potter loped across the ground, his eyes red and bloodshot – if she didn't know any better, she would have sworn he was hungover – and flashed his badge.

"I thought you'd resigned," said Yuna, not moving her hand from Molly's shoulder.

"I still am," he replied, his jaw set. "But I'll be putting the bitch who did this in the ground before I go. I walked away because I was weak, but I owe this to Hermione, to George, to Percy, to them all."

Molly nodded, grateful, choosing instead to glare at the girl who was still holding her back. Eyes narrowed, she waited, and when no movement was made, she shoved past.

"Uncle Harry, really, there could be evidence." Molly heard the girl exclaim, and she almost stopped before Harry replied,

"Powerful magic was used here, Yuna. Whatever signatures we could have gathered are far too frayed to be decisive, and a quick look at the grass is enough to tell you that any hair or whatever else the bitch could have left behind will be too damaged to use."

Molly continued, as that was all she had needed to hear. Feeling the scorched grass crackle beneath her pumps, she made her way to the bloody, battered grave of her son, and let out a dry gasp as she took it in. The marble had cracked down the centre, and the stone was brown with dried blood. The grass was flattened, as though someone had lain there, and the petals of various dried flowers were still dripping red into the earth.

She kneeled, reaching out to the tombstone, and whispered,

"Don't be too hard on him, Fred," she said with a watery smile. "If I hear you've been pranking him when I get there, I'll take you over my knee." Then, the smile broke and her forehead was leaning against the cracked stone, and the tears were falling hot and fast. Fists clenched, she sobbed, wishing Arthur was here with her and not currently in France with Victoire and baby Remy. He'd be here soon, though – as soon as he got the news.

She'd just have to wait a little longer.

"Percy, if you're there, know that I have loved you through it all, my son," she continued, "Why you? Why any of you and not me? Oh Merlin, how am I still here when three of my children are in heaven?"

The wind seemed to pick up as she collected herself, tears still running down her cheeks, but she put herself back into a kneeling position. No, she would not break – she could not break. Her boys needed so much more from her than this.

The dried flower petals shifted in the wind and she squinted, realising that between the splattered blood, almost lost to sight, was a word. A single, bloody word. The wind stilled, and from the corner of her eyes she could see blue silhouettes, disappearing when she turned to look at them.

She shifted aside the few dried flowers that remained, her eyes fixed upon the bloody smear that seemed to spell out a name. Letting out a cry as it was revealed, she could hear the Aurors hastening to her side, and she could do nothing else but point at the name upon the tombstone, written in her late son's blood.

 _Rose._

 **.o0o.**

"I haven't seen one of those since Mom took Hugo and I to the dentist when I was eight," she said, feigning a smile as Joshua set out a row a potion bottles and syringes on the bedside table. He held up one, and she could smell it from here, sharp and bitter. Skele-Grow, but from the smell alone she could tell it was much stronger.

"I find they get the job done faster," he replied, stretching out her arm and deftly sticking in the long needle. It would have stung, too, but her arm had already been numbed by a cool, green gel he'd smeared over the ripped flesh and old burns. "Now, this is going to hurt, but the bones should be fixed up in the next thirty minutes or so."

She lay back, letting her eyes close until she was able to watch him through her lashes. She could feel the potion working on her arm, even as the next injection delivered an elixir straight into her veins. Already, her body seemed to be replenishing her magic, and she needed to keep an eye on this man. There was no telling when the other shoe would drop and pieces would be put together.

Rose knew that she'd have to kill them both before she left, and for some reason, this troubled her. Unlike the others, these two hadn't sought her out. They'd helped her, but that didn't change the fact that she refused to go down in flames. Even as Josh applied the various healing potions to her, tipping a tonic of some sort down her throat, she knew that there was only one way that this all would end.

It was a question she'd asked herself when she'd first realised Verity could implicate her. Called to the forefront of her mind, she let it overwhelm her, and relived that faithful day when she crossed the boundary between a rage-filled murder and premeditated killing.

 _._

 _She'd hid the body in a piñata like a complete moron. Oh Merlin, she'd been so fucking pissed and she'd just wanted to see Lily's face crumple. She'd wanted her perfect little bitch of a cousin to break down and let go of that stupid happy-go-lucky persona, and fuck it, she'd wanted Scorpius' murder to be remembered._

 _He deserved it, after all, and she didn't want him to just be found in a ditch somewhere. No, she wanted the lights, the camera, the action, the whole fucking production, but now as she looked back, she regretted it._

 _Not the murder – Merlin knew the bastard had it coming. Hindsight was twenty-twenty, and she certainly thought she could have handled the whole thing better. Probably just turned him into a paperweight or something and made it look like he'd bailed on the wedding._

 _Then, it struck her that Verity had seen her bent over the desk with his cock ramming into her cunt, and if an affair wasn't motive for a murder, she didn't know what was. It filled her with dread just thinking about it. How long would it be before her mother put the pieces together? Uncle Harry? Hell, Louis hadn't even started his journalism career and he'd figure it out with a bit of digging._

 _She didn't want to go to Azkaban. Not for giving that bastard – who she loved – what he deserved. A memory charm? No, that wouldn't do. A skilled Healer could reverse all but the most powerful of them. Blackmail? No, she had nothing on Verity, and besides, doing so with only make her look more guilty._

 _Then, her eyes fell upon the bloody letter opener lying on her dining table, and her mind was made up. Dead men tell no tales, and even though she felt her gut twist into a knot at the thought , she knew that it was either her or Verity._

 _And she, Rose Granger-Weasley, was a survivor._

 _._

"How's the arm?" he asked, leaning over to dab at the cut behind her ear with an alcohol-soaked cotton swab. In response, she flexed it, almost grinning at the leaps and bounds made in magical medicine since she'd been in Hogwarts. Merlin, it had taken her a night to repair her ribs after that bloody Quidditch accident.

James wasn't even a beater, so she still held it against him for using his broom to send that bludger into the stands. It was his illness, they'd said. He didn't know what he was doing, they'd said. Bullshit – he'd just wanted to hurt her because she'd charmed his hair pink.

(That, at least, is how she saw it.)

"Has Louis already called the Aurors?" she asked, smiling up at her healer.

"He said he'd hold out until you were ready. You're a bit of an idiot to be out and about with Auror protection in the first place, honestly. Someone tried to kill you on the street outside not a month ago, or have you forgotten?"

She snorted. "My life, honey. I'm not going to live in fear. I think I just proved that I can take care of myself."

"You proved something alright," said Josh, flicking his wand to knit the split skin above her eye back together before setting it down. Reaching for the radio sitting on the opposite bedside table, he switched it on, filling the room with the raw, unrestrained vocals of Teddy Lupin. Rose almost gagged at the reminder that the radio station was holding a memorial thing for him.

Oh, fuck him. He was a moron and he was dead, blown to bits along with that fucking office. Pettigrew would be rather jealous – they hadn't even been able to recover a finger after she was done with Teddy.

Then, the lyrics turned into a blast of static, quickly replaced by the voice of Cho Chang. Rose narrowed her eyes, cautious, as the first words left the anchor's voice, and slid her hand up to the bedside table, casually slipping Joshua's wand onto the bed. Curling her fingers around the handle, she concealed it beneath the sheets, even as news of Percy's murder was being broached.

 _._

 _She screamed –the sound blood-curdling to her own ears – and with a flick of her wand caused it to repeat. Eyes narrowed, she Apparated to the other side of the building and hefted the block of concrete from the ground. It was just where she'd left it._

 _It was heavy, but that was a good thing. It meant that it would get the job done._

 _Slowly, she slunk forward, trusting in her Silencing charm to mask any sound her shoes could have made. On the tips of her toes, she neared her victim, and raised the concrete into the air above her._

" _Wrong place, wrong time, Missus Thomas," she said, her voice cool as she brought down her improvised weapon upon the older woman's head. Parvati crumpled, and Rose cocked her head to the side, studying the blood for a minute._

 _For love, she thought, as she headed back to the main street. Banishing her glove as she exited the alley, she drew the knife out of her belt and, without hesitating, stabbed herself in the gut._

 _As she collapsed, she banished the blade as she collapsed back onto the ground, and waited. After all, she'd seen Louis enter the building just above her, and knowing what a light sleeper her cousin was, he'd probably already be on his way to investigate._

 _The blood soaking into her top, she grimaced, and waited, laying there like the wolf in sheep's clothing._

 _(As she lay dying, she saw him and reached out to him, a smile on her face as she whispered, "You do love me, don't you, Scorpius?")_

 _._

"Another murder," said Josh. "It's honestly just so fucked up."

"It is that indeed," she said, her voice soft, watching his face. He was looking at the radio as though it were a television, and she'd have laughed at the thought if her situation was not so dire. If he put two and two together – Merlin, she still didn't feel ready for a fight. It would have to be swift and sudden.

"This just in, we have just received confirmation about the murderer's identity," said Cho Chang, her voice crackling through the radio. "The general public is urged to be on high alert regarding one Rose Granger-Weasley. There is a strong possibility that she was injured during the murder of Per–"

Josh's eyes widened and he dove for his wand, but she simply shook her head and, directing his wand at his chest, she whispered,

" _Avada Kedavra."_

He crumpled beneath her curse, eyes still frozen in realization, and she climbed out of bed. Shaky and somewhat dizzy, she grabbed the syringes that Joshua had laid out for later use, and without hesitation, jabbed them one by one into her arm.

 _._

" _My, this is a lot to take in, Mister Malfoy," she said, offering him a glass of bourbon. "Did my mother really give you permission to kill the murderer?"_

 _He nodded, bringing the glass to his lips, and the effects are instantaneous. She watched, catching her wolfish reflection in the window, and leaned in from her perch on the desk. His head lolled back, his eyes bleary as she swung a leg over him to enclose the chair he was sitting on, and she smiled._

" _Rose," he slurred, as she leaned in to run her hand against the side of his cheek._

" _You look just like Scorpius," she cooed, leaning in to press a tender kiss to his forehead. He tried to push her off, but she just smiled. "He loved me, you know? I loved him too, far too much to let him be miserable with that whore, Lily." She giggled, watching as he steadily grew more sluggish, his movements weaker and weaker, and she slipped off the desk into his lap._

" _You Malfoys are like a good bourbon," she said, loosening his tie. His head lolled back in the chair, his eyes rolling back in their sockets before his eyelids slid shut, and she let out a throaty laugh as she prodded his body. "You look so much like him, Mister Malfoy – just like my Scorpius."_

 _By the time her fingers had begun fumbling with the button of his jeans, he was already lost to the world of dreams._

 _._

Her magic surged, her pain faded, and she felt her lips press into a thin line. Stumbling out of bed, she flexed her arm, grateful that the break was healed, and narrowed her eyes at the door. This was Percy's fault – she knew it in her gut. If he'd only just let her kill him instead of fighting – but he'd tried to kill her, and now they'd all be trying to kill her. Azkaban clearly wasn't an option anymore . . . if they found her, she knew they'd be duelling to kill.

She heard someone running down the stairs and she clenched her fists and she blasted the door of its hinges and took off after her cousin. She'd fucking kill them all for doing this to her. She'd rip them limb from limb. But first, she'd start with Louis.

He was, after all, the nearest one who wanted her dead.

 **.o0o.**

"I'm glad to hear he's doing better," said Louis into his Codex, his hand resting on the doorknob, having just changed the subject from Rose to James. On the other end of the line, he could hear the radio crackling in the background, but his attention was fixed solely on Albus. His cousin had fallen silent, and then he heard a series of sharp cries of alarm.

"Oi!" he said into the device. "You all alright in there?"

"Get out of the house. Rose is–" Albus began, but Louis did not hear the rest. Instead, his eyes had widened at the green light that had flashed out of keyhole and the cracks beneath the door. His cousin's words echoed in his ears, and he took a step back as he heard a loud thud, like something heavy falling onto the ground. The words . . . he'd heard other words, the words of the killing curse, and that was when his instincts took over.

He turned around and took off as fast as he could.

 _Joshua, oh fuck, Joshua,_ he thought as he sprinted down the stairs. An explosion seemed to rock the house as he reached the foot of the stairs, and he looked behind just in time to see the bedroom door, at least what was left of it, hurtling through the air. Then, Rose was in his field of vision, running after him and taking the stairs two at a time.

Without hesitation, Louis tossed a stunning curse over his shoulder, only for it to miss and set a painting on fire. He ducked as he made his way to the fireplace, trying to ignore the sound of Albus screaming at him on the phone, and felt a rush of hot air above his head. Leaping behind a couch, he smelt smoke, obviously from the painting.

He couldn't duel her and win, that much was a given. Charms and writing were his forte, and whilst he'd managed to obtain acceptable passes in his subjects, it wouldn't be enough to hold back Rose. Hell, he'd never been much of a duellist in the first place, relying on his guile to get him out of rough situations – Louis doubted he even had the ability to cast an Unforgivable, of which Rose had already proved herself capable of casting the worst of the lot.

No, he'd have to run.

Curses were slamming against his hasty shield charm, whilst others tore over his head. The wall nearest to him that housed the fireplace was very nearly in ruins, and if he wanted to move he needed to do so now.

"Albus," he screamed, cutting off his cousin's yells. "Seal the fucking Floo as soon as I come through."

The couch shuddered, bursting into flame and he tossed out another stunner.

The time it took her to deflect it was enough for him to get roll into the nearby fireplace, scooping up a handful of Floo Powder from the carpet as he went. The clay pot it had been in lay shattered, and he could feel the shards stabbing into him as he went over them, but it was barely a tingle.

"Malfoy Manor," he yelled, and as the flames roared around him, his eyes widened at the streak of orange light that was just a few inches away.

 **.o0o.**

She should have never let her guard down, not even to visit some friends who she hadn't seen since her Hogwarts days. It had been a fairly pleasant afternoon, though considering some of the experiences she'd had since becoming a Guardian, the bar hadn't exactly been set very high. So, despite Lily sobbing into a sodden handkerchief, Albus pacing the room, and Cassiopeia trying her level best to calm the other girl down, Francesca still believed it was a fairly quaint night.

Of course, one only had to think something along those lines for all hell to break loose.

Her gun now trained upon the fireplace in the antechamber, she narrowed her eyes and waited. Cassiopeia and Albus flanked her, both their wands drawn, ready to seal the Floo, and even Lily, god bless her soul, had her wand pointed at the fireplace despite her shaking hands.

The Patronus had already been sent and the Aurors and Hugo were on their way, so she was certain that this would all be over tonight. Despite that feeling, she could not ignore the lingering feeling of dread that had settled into her gut.

The fireplace sparked, jade green, and she tensed, her finger loose against the trigger. Then, it erupted into flames and Louis spilled out, and she heard Lily let out a scream. She couldn't blame the girl – Francesca herself had to resist the urge to vomit. His left leg ended midway down his thigh in a ripped and mangled mass of flesh, blood, and shattered bone. Already, she could tell that he had lost consciousness, and from the amount of blood spurting out of the wreckage that had been his limb – she could tell a blasting curse when she saw one – he didn't have much longer.

" _Colloportus,"_ bellowed Albus, shutting down the fireplace.

" _Sigillum Sanguinis,"_ shrieked Cassiopeia, and Francesca felt the Malfoy wards slide into place around the Floo, effectively shutting it against any and all intrusion. Keeping her gun trained ahead regardless, she spared Louis a glance from the corner of her eye. Lily was on her knees beside him, desperately trying to staunch the bleeding, and Cassiopeia was almost at his side when the fireplace seemed to buckle.

"He's losing too much blood," she said, following protocol and not moving from her position. "Cauterise the wound. Can people still Apparate out of here? He needs to get to St. Mungo's immediately."

" _Incendio,_ " muttered Cass, surprisingly level headed, and Lily simply turned away, retching. The air heavy with the smell of vomit and burning flesh, Albus replied,

"Cass used the family wards to seal the manor. Cass, Astoria, and I are the only three people who can come and go as we please with these wards in place." Whilst he spoke, Francesca noticed the fireplace buckle again, as if caught between two powerful spells. Fairly certain that Rose was now trying to force her way through, she made her decision. She had faith in the wards to hold until the Aurors could apprehend Rose, but as a Guardian, she had been trained to always expect the worst possible outcome.

"Cass, get him to a hospital. Now." The blonde looked ready to protest, but a quick look from Albus was all it took for her to grab a hold of Louis, and Apparate away with a crack.

"Al," she continued. "If those wards give way, this place is going to be a battlefield. Your brother still upstairs?"

"You can't expect him to fight." Albus scowled. "Merlin, he can barely walk to the bathroom on his own."

"He needs to go," she said, ignoring what he'd said. "Get Lily out of here – either the Burrow or Grimmauld – and then come back for him. Don't argue with me."

Nodding, the man grabbed his sister and disappeared, leaving her alone to hold the quivering fireplace. It was odd, she thought, because she'd never heard of spells being able to travel through the Floo after the fireplace had been sealed. Running the calculations in her mind, she realised with a start that it was impossible.

The realisation came too late, for before she could react to the silent Apparition behind her or breath against her neck, the knife had been firmly wedged into her spine. Her legs gone limp, she fell, the gun slipping from her fingers in shock.

"You focused on the fireplace," said Rose, her tongue snaking out to caress the blonde's ear. "But Scorpius gave me the key to these wards the day we started fucking."

Reaching over, Rose picked up the gun and pointed it between Francesca's eyes.

(The bullet took her between the eyes.)


	10. Bringing Out The Dead

**The Things We Do For Love**

The first thing he heard upon returning to the Manor was laughter, harsh and deranged, coming from the passage. Without hesitation, Albus flung a locking charm at the door, and rushed to his brother's side. He needed to get James and get out, because it was already painfully evident that Francesca had fallen.

If a Guardian couldn't stop Rose, then he, a Potions Master, stood no chance.

James was awake and looked more alert than he'd been in days, sitting up in bed, his arms trembling as he watched the door. With one hand clutching the sheets and the other curled around a lamp, his brother was paler than a ghost, wearing an expression of utmost dread.

Outside, he could feel the wards shudder and shift under an onslaught of spells – probably the Aurors trying to get in, and he cursed, knowing that this made Apparition all the harder. For a moment, he wondered if he could drop the wards and let them in, but then he realised that such an act was not within his power.

He was not a Malfoy. He was just a consort of the current Lady of the Manor, Cassiopeia, the last trueborn child of the Malfoy line. Whilst he could come and go through the wards, he could not control them as she could, as his children one day would. There was nothing he could do other than get himself and his brother out of this place and away from the murderous bitch cackling in the hall.

The laughter drew nearer, eerie and haunting, causing the hairs along the back of his neck to stand up on end. Casting one last furtive glance at the door, Albus grabbed his brother and said,

"Hold on, James, this is going to be a rough ride."

"It's Rose, isn't it?" asked James, clutching at his arms. "She's here."

Albus nodded and prepared to Apparate, but it was already too late. The door flew off its hinges, and had he not thrown up a shield, he was certain that the splintered wood would have taken off his head. She stood in the doorway, a savage grin upon her face, and Albus realised that he didn't have a choice.

All who were born on this earth had instincts. In times such as these, they had to choose between fight or flight, between running or standing tall. When one option was removed, as his chance of escape had been, it would break something within the prey. He experienced that now as he raised his wand, for if he had no choice but to fight, then he would do whatever it took to survive.

He felt a shivering hand upon his shoulder and glanced out the corner of his eye, his teeth clenching as he saw James stand beside him, unsteady and tottering, yet also holding his wand aloft. Rose stared at them, and the only sound she made was laughter.

Then, she attacked, and the force of her spell against their conjoined shield was such that every bit of glass in the room shattered. He slashed his wand through the air, levitating the bed and sending it whizzing towards her. A split second later, James had turned the bed to stone, which Rose then blasted to dust before releasing a barrage of hexes and curses.

Albus ducked, rolling towards the window, and cried out in pain as a shower of blue sparks hit him in the eye. Blood spurted across his face, wetting his hair and flowing into his mouth, and he howled, gasping for breath. He was barely aware of James, somehow still managing to stay upright, but then he was distracted by the searing pain filling his head.

His eye, the bitch had taken out his eye.

He staggered and yelled, " _Expelliarmus_." Not sure where the notion had come from, he spat out the blood was still pouring into his mouth, and almost missed the curse shot his way before Rose's wand went spinning out of her hand. The jet of light streaked towards him and the world seemed to slow, because he knew that shade of green.

" _Expulso,"_ bellowed Jamed, whirling around and slamming a spell into his gut. Albus screamed as he was hurled through the window, the killing curse flying through the space he had just forcibly vacated, and the last thing he saw before losing sight of the fight was James crashing into a painting, his wand rolling from his grasp.

The ground rushed up, faster and faster, and he closed his uninjured eye, not wanting to see death as he hurtled towards it. The wind whipped at his body, his eye screeched in pain, and shards of glass were digging into his back. He was almost ready to die, just to escape the pain.

He was falling.

Falling.

Falling.

Wait, how long had been fucking falling? He'd been no more than three floors up. He should have hit the ground by now.

Then, with a start, he realised that he was floating, enwrapped within the glow of a levitation charm. Below him, he could make out the flash of red hair and a pale, heart-shaped face contorted with fury.

"Lily," he muttered, as the world began to dim around him.

Slowly, gently, he felt himself being lowered towards the ground, but by that point, all he could feel was cold, and all he could see was black. All he could hear was footsteps sprinting towards the Manor, and a malicious voice screaming,

"Bitch, you took the man I loved. You are not taking my brothers."

 **.o0o.**

"The Malfoys built this place to survive a siege, Uncle Harry," said Yuna as she flung hexes from her wand, the jets of green and red bursting against the translucent bubble surrounding the Manor. "We're throwing everything we have against them, but it's going to take hours at this rate."

Harry growled before flicking his wrists, releasing the springs within his holsters and causing his wands to shoot into his hands. Without missing a beat, a slew of curses erupted from their tips, shockwaves ripping through the air his curses made contact. Despite it taking almost all his concentration to maintain two wands at once, a long thought crept into his mind, one that was not wholly unfamiliar to him.

This would be so much easier with the Elder Wand at his disposal.

Still, his power seemed sufficient. He was not Hermione, with her brilliant mind and knowledge of magic, but in raw magical energy, he more than made up for it. There was no denying it or need for modesty – he had always been the strongest, she the wittiest, and Ron the balance between the two of them that had kept them on track.

For the longest time, he'd considered leaving this all behind. Without the two of them, it had just felt different – they were a team, a family, the original trio that had saved the world – and he hadn't wanted to keep up the fight without them at his sight. It had changed, though, when the alcohol had burned away and his mind had cleared, because this was not about him anymore, and when he'd gotten the call from St. Mungo's.

It was about them, his two best friends, and the rest of those who had fallen at the hands of Rose that he had to finish this. It was for them that he had to stand tall as their sky fell, and it was for them that he would finish this one last raid. He owed it to them, to all of them, to everyone, to make sure his niece got what was coming for her. The same rage now filled him, keeping him going, the anger that had flared within him when Sirius had fallen through the Veil and he'd cast his first Unforgivable. The rage that had filled him when Snape had flung Dumbledore from the Tower, and when Amycus Carrow had spat in the face of Minerva, when he'd saved Molly Weasley from Voldemort's curse.

It was wrath. It was dark. It was vicious.

It was the demon within, the darkness that existed in all of them, and when it came to Rose, he was going to let it win, just so that he could make her feel his pain, feel the pain of every person she'd hurt.

A noise like thunder filled the air, followed by an impossibly bright flash of orange light, and he cocked his head to the side, taking in the sight of Hugo kneeling on the ground with some sort of large rifle aimed at the barrier. Without hesitating, the boy – no, the Guardian – cranked the weapon and fired again, a round the size of a fist whipping through the air. Harry just had the time to see the coppery light flashing from within the bullet and the runic engravings upon the weapon before it exploded against the wards.

It was an odd sight when compared to the various Aurors around them, all flinging curses, and it was then that he realised that they were not alone.

Others were Apparating around him, their wands held aloft, firing hexes before their feet had even landed upon solid ground. He recognized faces, so many faces. Arthur, Bill, and Ginny seemed to be leading the public assault, but his nephews and nieces were everywhere, spells springing from their wands, and his heart about gave out at the sight of Dominique's Muggle fiancé – a police officer – casually strolling up to Hugo and asking for one of his spelled guns.

Without hesitation, the Guardian tossed one into the air, and the Muggle opened fire.

"Potter," barked an elderly female voice. "Get down."

Instinctively dropping to his knees, Harry felt his hair whip about his head at the crackling beam of energy which roared above him, the sound causing his eardrums to pop. The beam intensified, fine cracks spreading from the area of impact, and Harry turned to see the source of the blast, even if he was already pretty certain of the caster.

Minerva McGonagall stood tall despite her status as a supercentenarian, chanting under her breath, her grey hair whipping around her hair, and the energy poured from her staff. It was staggering – the power of the former Headmistress, and when she finally broke her assault, he gave her a nod before rising to his feet.

"Harry," bellowed Bill, coming up beside him. "We've barely made a dent in that fucking thing."

"I know." Harry spat, as he watched windows in the Manor flare with coloured light. A battle raged within, and it was the very spells defending the Manor and its inhabitants that now put them in such a state of peril. "Any ideas?"

"These wards are woven with blood, only a –"

"Oh Merlin." Harry whirled around, just in time to see Cassiopeia Apparate into the area, her clothes stained with blood. Before he could react, however, an explosion rocked the air, and when he looked back he saw the fire raging through that the entire western wing of the Manor had been obliterated.

"Cass, what the hell is going on in there?" Harry asked, not missing a beat before turning to his daughter-in-law.

"I . . . I don't know," she said, her voice breaking. For a second, she looked as though she was about to faint, but then she shook herself, and seemed to become aware of her surroundings. "I had to get Louis to St. Mungo's –"

"You had to take my son where?" shrieked Fleur, her eyes widening.

"Rose got him with an explosion curse," she supplied, and without another the word the Frenchwoman had Disapparated. Bill looked at Harry for a minute, pained, and then he took off as well, but before a word could escape his lips at the development Hugo was standing between them.

"Who's in there, Cass?" he asked, and Harry doubted he'd ever heard a voice sound so grim.

"Albus, James, Francesca, Lily, and Rose," she said. "The four of them were there when I left with Louis, and I can only assume Rose got through somehow as well."

"Can you drop the wards?"

"Not from out here."

"Let's go then." Cassiopeia nodded, and Harry opened his mouth to protest. Before he could, however, the blond had grabbed Hugo's arm and they were gone. For a minute, he waited, and then with a loud whoosh the wards came crashing down, followed by a resounding cheer.

"Aurors, form up," he bellowed, instantly breaking into a sprint across the ground. "Civilians, stay where you are." Behind him, the steady thumping of the Auror's boots against the ground filled his ears, and he looked up at the rapidly approaching Manor.

Rose was staring back at them, her arms crossed above her head, her hands creating an x. It was almost archaic, her form, and he could already hear the alarm bells begin to sound in his head. He could barely make out the crumpled form of a man lying limp beside her, but at this distance and with his vision he just couldn't make out who it was. Then, his attention was drawn to Rose, and his heart stopped at the sight.

" _Animus Exsultans!"_ she shrieked, and Harry threw out his arms, signalling the Aurors to halt. The spell was unfamiliar, but he knew the energy that had begun coalescing above her. Ancient, chaotic, powerful – Merlin, the last time he'd felt such a power, it had killed the caster. This was not the magic he wielded on a daily basis. No, this was old magic, the likes of which could only be found in the most ancient of books.

Books which Hermione, Rose's mother, would have no doubt made a point of collecting.

" _Ludicium,"_ she said, her voice more levelled, and all hell broke loose. The energy ripped forth from between her palms in a frenzied barrage of inky tentacles, whipping through the air. Narrowing his eyes, Harry crossed his wands and channelled his shield through both.

The force of the tentacles meeting his shield nearly sent him sprawling, and the backlash was enough to cause another segment of the Manor to crumble. Harry dug his feet into the ground, feeling the massive gale roaring around them, and gritted his teeth under the pressure. Just a little longer – he'd just have to hold for a little longer – for he could see that Rose was already staggering.

The girl was knowledgeable and skilled, it would seem, but she lacked the raw power to properly execute her attacks. Just as the thought crossed his mind, the tentacles entwined into a single beam of crackling black energy, and it was all he could do to keep his shield in place.

He felt his lungs grow hot and scorched, his breath rattling in his throat. His heart was ready to burst, beating like a locomotive, and his veins burned. He could feel his hair burn, his eyes growing dry as paper, but he didn't move from his position, even as the flesh was being ripped from his bones.

"ENOUGH," he roared, separating his wands from their crossed position and jabbing them forward. The shield shuddered, the beam wavered, and then the world seemed to take flame. Air charged with Ozone, Harry was barely aware of the way he was flung through the air, his body hitting the ground with a sickening crunch. The Manor quaked, ancient spells woven into the very structure straining and snapping, and then just as quickly as the blaze began, it was gone.

Harry groaned, spitting blood, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Death approach on skeletal wings. He looked back at the Manor, shocked to see it still standing, and then he felt his blood run cold.

She was swaying on her feet, weakened but still deadly, and she grinned at him. It was a wild look, unhinged, and as if to mock him she waved a knife at him. Then, she kneeled, lifting up the crumpled body at her feet, and all Harry saw was the stirring body of his son, James, with a knife pressed to his throat.

Harry reached for his wands, determined to stop her, to save his son, and realised that they were both lying in smoking splinters. Still, he realised, as he watched Death press a skeletal hand to his chest – there was still a weapon he had left.

Death reached out, bony fingers curling upon his sluggishly beating heart. Harry spat, jaw set, and he forced everything he had into his strike. His hand sank into Death's chest and curled upon a still, stone heart, and without hesitation, he clenched his fingers.

"I mastered you long ago, old friend," he said, coughing. "Now, serve me."

 **.o0o.**

The moment Albus left her in Grimmauld, she knew that she had to go back. Her brothers, her parents, almost her entire family was there, and the engagement ring on her finger burned with their magical signatures crashing against the wards.

Her link to the family was incomplete – all but broken by her fiancé's death, but the barest traces of the bond were still there. It was the magic of the Manor, of the ten centuries of Malfoys who had lived there, and the very energy of the land. She had accepted the invitation into its fold, and the House of Malfoy did not easily relinquish its grasp.

It called to her through the ring, urging her to return, but it didn't need to. Her mind had already been made up the moment she'd felt Francesca's magical signature fade – almost as though a blip had suddenly disappeared from a radar – and she closed her eyes.

The suffocating darkness enveloped her and when she opened her eyes, she was standing in the gardens of Malfoy Manor. Light was flaring from James' room, and she could hear raised voices splitting the air. She took off at a run, before hearing the shattering of glass.

Pausing to levitate Albus safely to the ground, she felt her rage bubble up in a way that it never had before. When Scorpius had died, she had wanted to curl up in a ball and sob until her tears could fill the sea, but she had not wanted revenge. All she had wanted was peace and the knowledge that the killer had been caught and imprisoned.

Seeing her brother fall through the air with his eye a bloody ruin and hearing James yelling above, she felt something within her break. It snapped, filling her veins with a molten steel, and she all but obliterated the doors on her way into the home. Without hesitation, she charged up the stairs.

When she reached the top, she came face to face with a bloody, unarmed Rose. The bitch was unsteady on her feet, for the life of her looking like some deranged ballerina dancing on broken strings. Before the bitch could react, however, Lily had grabbed her, digging her nails into the bloody flesh with all the strength she had.

Her wand forgotten, she brought up her knee and caught Rose in the stomach before ripping back her arms, her nails leaving deep shreds across her foe's cheeks. Like a wildcat, she leapt, drawing back her fist before slamming it into Rose's face, hearing the satisfying crunch of bone breaking beneath her fingers.

The broken nose, however, seemed to snap Rose out of whatever shock she'd had upon encountering Lily. When she tried to punch the murderous cunt again, she felt fingers yank on her hair, and before she could steady herself her head had been slammed against the railing.

"Nice one," snarled Lily, spitting hair out of her mouth. "But I've taken bludgers that hurt more." Balancing herself against the railing, she kicked out with both legs, knocking Rose off balance. On the edge of the stairs, Rose stumbled, and Lily lashed out with her fist.

As Rose fell, she flung out an arm and yanked Lily with her. A shriek escaped her mouth as she went hurtling down the stairs, tangled with the killer. The rich carpeting did little to soften the repeated blows to her body, the sharp edges of each step catching her in the most unlikely of places. Even as she fell, though, she was clawing at the other girl and receiving punches slaps and punches in return.

Then, her head struck the last stair with a sharp crack, and her world spun. Tears welled in her eyes at the blow, but she got to her feet nonetheless, staggering as she tried to regain her balance. When she looked up, her eyes falling on Rose, she took a step back in shock.

In her bloody hands, Rose held a halberd, taken from a nearby suit of armour. The weapon was long, giving her range, but she swung it in a way that showed her inexperience. Still, Lily realised as she backed away, her eyes darting this way and that for a weapon, one good swing and she'd be dead before her head hit the ground.

"What's the plan, Rose?" Lily asked, her hands falling upon the breastplate of another suit of armour. "Everyone knows. You can't cover this up."

"I don't care," she replied, her eyes wide. "This is your fault!"

"You're delusional." Lily snorted. "An absolutely batshit insane whore." With those words, her hands closed upon the handle of the weapon and she hefted it. _Oh, fuck me!_ The weapon was a morning star – heavy, deadly, and most-likely magical – but the weight was just too much for her to fight with. Still, she was not stupid enough to take on an armed murderer with her bare hands.

She lunged, swinging the weapon with all her strength. The momentum sent it flying from her grasp and for a split second, Lily thought it would hit its target. Then Rose dodged and swung the halberd, the pole catching her feet and knocking her to the ground.

Lily groaned, trying to get up on her hands and knees when she felt a shoe press against the back of her neck. It forced her back to the ground, and she snarled.

"Are you going to kill me now, Rose? Go ahead – my heart died with Scorpius."

Out the corner of her eye, she thought she could see _him_ , watching the pair of them fight. It was strange, almost, how her mind was hallucinating _him_ of all people. He'd betrayed her in the worst way, but she had loved him.

Was it not fitting that she see some conjured spectre of him before she die?

Then, the spirit launched itself of the ground, and hurtled towards them. Lily's eyes widened, unsure, as she saw him approaching, getting closer and closer, but her attention was quickly turned back to Rose.

"Kill you?" Rose snapped, the heel of her boot digging into Lily's neck. "You're the one person I won't kill. I want you to suffer for what you did to Scorpius and I . . . I want you to feel it for every day of a very long life."

(With that said, Rose raised the halberd and brought it down into Lily's back, taking care to let the spike cut through her spine. Lily screamed, a bloodcurdling sound, and before her eyes she watched as Rose was hurled off her and into a wall.)

 **.o0o.**

"You came back to me," she whispered, struggling to her feet. She smiled and reached out to caress the spirit's cheek, wanting to lean into his insubstantial form. He was just as gorgeous as she remembered him – if a little blue and transparent – with his lean muscle, high cheekbones, and platinum-blond hair. "You do love me, don't you? You know I did all of this for us, Scor. Because you loved me."

The spirit cocked his head to the side and smiled, reaching out a hand to lay against her chest. Then, before she could react, he had landed a fierce backhand against her cheek and sent her sprawling.

"You killed me," he said, teeth gritted. "How dare you show your face in my ancestral home?" Without letting her recover, he bent over her and yanked her by the hair. Pulling her to her feet, he slammed his spectral fist against her stomach.

Merlin, those potions she'd taken earlier were wearing off. She wasn't sure how much longer she'd be able to keep going. In the name of Merlin, why hadn't Louis just died? He'd just had to go to the Manor so that she'd have to expedite her plans – and now look at her. She hadn't been prepared for one fight after another, and the battle against Harry in particular had nearly broken her.

Finally, when she'd just managed to get rid of Lily – that bitch who stole Scorpius from her, who forced her to kill the man she loved – he'd come back. He'd fucking attacked her! For Lily!

Even now, she could see him kneeling beside her, gently extricating the halberd from her back. No! No! Why was he back! What ghostly magic was this? He was dead! She'd killed him herself nearly six weeks ago, and not even the Malfoys would have wards at their disposal that would keep their dead around as guardians.

Why was he here? Why was he still with Lily? After all that bitch had done to him. He'd died because of Lily – because of how Rose had never been enough for Scorpius once Lily waggled her scrawny arse into the picture.

"You're supposed to love me," she said, leaning on a heap of debris as she got to her feet. "You told me you loved me."

"I loved you," said another ghost, stepping out from behind the pillars. "My love was unconditional . . . a mother's love for her daughter . . . and you killed me." Hermione shook her head and frowned, moving to stand between Rose and Scorpius. "You will do no more murder this night."

Rose spun, looking to the stairs, but someone was already walking down them, tapping a cane. Platinum-blond hair was neatly pulled into a ponytail, and the man walked with a quiet dignity. That did not stop her from taking a step back at the sight of him. She froze, feeling an elbow dig into her lower back, followed by a kick to her side.

She fell to her knees, watching them circle her. Where they came from, she did not know, but there was nothing but rage beneath their familiar faces. Her victims, she realized, were surrounding her, boxing her in, and whilst some – like her mother – wore expressions of pity, the rest just emanated the desire for vengeance.

"You don't know what love is, Rose," said Draco with a sneer. "You will die alone, knowing you are alone, knowing that you will never be loved, you monster."

"Your name will be reviled throughout history," said Parvati, circling her. "You, the Butcher of Britain, Rose Granger-Weasley, will never be respected, loved, or accepted. Your sins will haunt you for all time."

"And even in death," said Lavender, eyes narrowed, "you will not know peace. We will make sure of that."

Their voices were blurring together, a bitter medley which clawed at her ears. Backing away until she was pressed against the wall, the dead advanced, and it was all she could do not to fall to her knees. Dead – they were all dead. They weren't supposed to be here. Merlin, she'd gotten rid of them, ensured her safety . . . how were they here?

How could they torment her in the world of the living?

(Within her, the last shred of humanity shattered, and her glass castle came crashing down.)

"Let us make an end of this," said Hermione, her voice breaking. Rose watched as her mother hung back and turned away, as if not wanting to see her die. As if she cared? This was the second time Hermione had condemned her to die – and as she'd proven the last time, she would not go quietly into that dark night.

She'd take the lot of them with her and fuck the rest to oblivion.

"What's the rush?" asked Lorcan, grabbing Rose by the chin and lifting her off the ground. "I'm sure we have time for a few more games. She spat in his face, her eyes narrowing as the spittle passed through him. They were ghosts. She couldn't fight ghosts.

Something must be keeping them here, she reasoned.

"Potter isn't going to last much longer," said Draco, jabbing his cane against Rose's stomach. "I'm surprised he's managed this long."

Or someone . . . it came to her, and she laughed. A cold, cruel cackle escaped her lips. Had they been alive, she was sure that the sound would send shivers down their spines, for it was a deranged sound – even to her own ears. The pain was becoming almost pleasurable as she laughed, and it seemed to flabbergast the spirits, for they did nothing but watch.

She Dissaparated, knowing what she needed to do.

 **.o0o.**

"Cass . . ." he murmured, and her heart broke at the agony that was his voice.

"I've got you, Al," she said, balancing his weight as best she could. With one of his arms slung across her shoulders, her hand holding his firm with her other arm around his midriff, she was dragging him towards the large group of people standing on the outskirts of the estate. She was thankful that her husband wasn't a heavy man, but in the very same breath she cursed his injuries and the bitch who'd given them to him.

Without knowing the spell that had taken his eye, Cass had no idea if she could safely Apparate with him – hell, she didn't even know if she'd be able to cast a featherweight charm on him without killing him. As it stood, all she'd been able to do was roughly bandage the eye with strips of cloth torn from her blouse, and she hoped it would be enough.

At least until they reached St. Mungos. The Healers would know what to do.

Behind her, she heard the sounds of fighting but she pushed on regardless, forcing them from her mind. James, Hugo, and Lily were in there . . . but her priority was her husband. She couldn't abandon him to enter the fight. Her priority was getting Albus to safety, for his sake, for her sake, and for the sake of the child within her womb.

"Is Rose?"

"Last I saw, Lily was beating the living daylights out of her," said Cass, dragging them both forward. Physically, she knew that she was not the strongest of woman, but at this moment she was certain she could have carried Albus off the estate if need be. She supposed this was the strength she'd heard women talk about – the adrenaline rush that increased their strength tenfold, allowing them to lift burning cars of their children or break down doors with their bare hands to protect their families.

She said as much to Albus, desperate to keep him talking and not let him pass out. He chuckled faintly against her ear, but the sound of his mirth, however pained, was enough to lift a fraction of the weight from her trembling shoulders.

"My father called it the power of love," he replied, "I kind of agree."

It was at that moment she saw it and froze. The Aurors had formed a perimeter around the place and, upon catching sight of her, two of them broke into a sprint to get to her side. She recognised one – Yuna, Albus' second cousin on his father's side – but her eyes were fixed on something else entirely.

The Grim Reaper was standing on her front lawn.

"Of course he is," she said, shaking her head and passing Al's weight to the Aurors. She heard Yuna barking commands, calling for a medi-wizard, but she couldn't focus on anything other than the scene playing out in front of her. Death was there, his hand upon her father-in-law's chest, and Harry was reaching up, his arm disappearing into the tattered folds of Death's cloak.

The sight was both macabre and intimate in the same breath, and she understood what was keeping the Aurors from entering the home. This was an immortal – a primordial being – and she doubted if even the bravest man in the world would dare try walking past him.

It was then that the crack of Apparition echoed through the air. She drew her wand when she saw Rose appear. The redhead was laughing, her head cocked to the side, and holding a broken knife. Before she could react – or the Aurors, for that matter – the knife had come down, the broken blade disappearing into Harry's throat.

(The ghosts within the Manor flickered and vanished, their cries of outrage echoing through the air.)

The entire world seemed to stand still as Harry broke into spasms, his body beginning to smoke. Within seconds, he was on fire – the flames black and laced with silver – and she was running, tearing across the front lawn with her wand aimed at Rose. Death had already vanished, faded into the shadows that he created, but Rose was unarmed, standing there in plain sight.

Hexes rained from her hand, aimed directly at the redhead, but none made contact. The Aurors were firing off their spells as well now, dozens of curses shooting through the air, each and every one of them aimed at that one spot.

It was too late, though. Rose was already gone, but she could still hear the laughter. It rang across the lawn, spilling forth from the ruined Manor, and a part of her wanted nothing more than to charge in there and deal with the bitch once and for all.

Then, she stopped, her hand falling to rest on her flat stomach, and she let out a sigh. She couldn't risk it – for the sake of her child, she could not get into a battle with a deranged sociopath. The Aurors darted past her, heading for the Manor, but she turned to walk back towards her husband.

"He's stable enough to Apparate," said Yuna, looking from her to the Manor.

"I'll take him," said Cassiopeia. "Go kill the bitch."

As she sank to her knees to wrap her arms around Albus, she whispered soft words in Latin, a tight smile appearing across her face as she spoke. Around her, the wards snapped into position, already recognising her unborn child as the next Master of the Manor.

This would end tonight. Rose may have been able to gain entry the last time . . . but she would not be able to leave. No, the only way out for her now was in a body-bag.

 **.o0o.**

He came too, cursing his own stupidity. It was embarrassing, really, that he'd have been knocked out by a timely block of debris hitting his head almost immediately after Apparating into the Manor. It was more than embarrassing, it was downright humiliating, especially to one such as he.

He was a Guardian, after all.

Gathering himself, he heaved himself to his heat, just in time to hear the crack of Apparition coming from upstairs. The Manor was becoming a death-trap, he noted, as he slid in the magazine loaded with Cruciatus bullets. He couldn't risk anything else – these walls looked like a Disarming charm could bring them down.

The torture curse would not have any effect on non-living matter, so he'd rely on that as his weapon. In the distance, he could make out Lily's soft whimpers, but there was no way he could stop to help her now. Rose had proven herself to be a true force of nature – absolutely lethal in the way she'd taken out so many skilled witches and wizards – and putting her down was his first priority.

He shuddered at the thought. This wasn't a stranger that he'd been tasked with assassinating, and nor was it a criminal that he'd taken out in a fight. This was his sister, a girl he'd grew up. It was Rose, dammit. Rose, who'd been there for him whenever he'd needed his big sister.

He thought he'd known her. Now, he wondered if it had all been a lie – if Rose had always been a sociopath, and he'd just blinded himself to the truth. Hugo swallowed, not wanting to contemplate that line of thought, because it raised another question, one that was far more horrifying.

Had he not been blind, could he have stopped her? Could he have saved his mother? Could he have saved Francesca?

Slowly, he made his way up the stairs, listening for the slightest sounds. Rose was in the third room, he realised – a guest room, if he remembered correctly. He could hear her laughter ringing through the doorway, and it forced a shiver down his spine.

His sister sounded as though she'd truly lost what was left of her mind.

Hugo paused just before he reached the door, keeping his eyes fixed ahead. Reaching for his belt with his free hand, he drew out a tiny mirror and positioned it to look into the room. His gaze flickered, taking note of his sister laughing at the window, shooting curses into the front yard.

He winced – every one of those curses were dark and lethal in nature, and judging by the cries outside, it was all the Aurors could do to contain the Fiendfyre and other horrors his sister had unleashed. She must be exhausted, though, he thought. With the amount of magic she'd used throughout the night, not to mention her injuries . . . Merlin, it was impossible for her to still be fighting.

How had she even gotten another wand?

Not impossible, really, but everyone had their limits. His sister was not a fighter. She was not trained in combat or warfare – she shouldn't have this much power. Then again, perhaps it was just that he didn't want to accept the truth of all his senses. Maybe, Hugo just didn't want to believe that Rose had utterly and completely lost her mind, and that the barriers within her – those restraints within each and every one of them which kept them from expending too much of themselves – had shattered.

Whatever the case, this was not his sister anymore.

He swung around the door and pulled the trigger.

The window shattered, the bullet disappearing into the night.

He felt a cold, steel muzzle press against his temple, and the soft click of the safety being turned off. Hugo swallowed, glancing out the corner of his eye to see his sister, a wicked grin on her face as she aimed the gun – Francesca's gun – at him. How the fuck had she moved so fast?

Bloody hell, he thought, thinking of the mirror. He'd never actually looked into the room – as was protocol – and his sister knew a great deal of his tricks. How hard would it have been for her to jinx the mirror with a glamour?

"For all your talk of separating yourself from your emotions, baby brother," she said with a leer, "you really let your rage drive you." She giggled, pushing the gun into his skin, and motioned for him to drop his weapon. He did, a plan already forming in his mind.

"True," replied Hugo, adopting a conversational tone and slowly moving around so that he was facing her, the gun now fixed firmly between his eyes. He tried not to look at it, wanting to avoid getting cross-eyed, and continued. "But, that's for the best, I suppose."

"And why is that?"

Instead of answering, he back-flipped, throwing himself through the air and lashing out with his legs. Rose fired, but the bullet missed, and his kick sent the gun flying through the air. She shrieked, leaping towards him, but he dropped to a crouch and swept out a leg, knocking her off balance. Balancing on one arm, he launched himself forward, his kick catching her falling body in the jaw, and he grinned.

Without missing a beat, he had his ankles crossed on either side of her throat, and he spun, yanking her over him and slamming her into the ground. As he got to his feet, he cracked his knuckles, a small chuckle escaping his lips.

He readily admitted that he wasn't the strongest man in the world – his build being far too lithe and lean to pack any serious muscle – but that didn't mean his body as a whole was anything less than lethal.

"You see," he said, striding over and placing one foot onto her throat, forcing it down to cut off her air supply. "I don't hold back when it comes to love, and you took away two people who meant the world to me. So, how about I keep my foot right where it is, and watch you suffocate."

She smiled.

"Oh, Hugo, you'll never know what hit you," she managed to choke out, and he saw it.

Before he could react, she'd fired his gun. In his zeal, he'd thrown her right where he'd dropped it, and he let out an ear-splitting scream as the curse was released. He was blasted back, his back hitting a chair, and he tried to control his screams.

He couldn't.

He felt as though his lungs had filled with barbed wire, as if his heart was pumping acid. His skin was being scraped against sandpaper, his bones were being broken, again and again with a sledgehammer.

Rose knelt beside him and pressed a bloody lip to his cheek. He was writhing beside her, his body a vessel of pure agony, but she just giggled. He wanted to shove her away, to fucking stab her in the face, but he could do little more than scream and contort himself in an attempt to rid himself of the pain.

If the bullet had just incapacitated him, he'd have found himself laughing, though.

Poor Rose, she seemed to think that he was her biggest threat. If only she'd turn around . . . maybe she'd be able to make peace with the devil before her death came closing in. After all, of all those who had suffered at her hands, one person really stood out.

And Hugo only had to look up to see that James wore murder in his eyes.

 **.o0o.**

When he'd heard Hugo scream, all his thoughts off leaving the Manor and heading for safety had deserted him. Bare-chested and bruised – his shirt having being bound around the deep gash in his thigh as a make-shift bandage – he'd been hobbling for the stairs when he'd heard the screeches.

Fuck it, he couldn't turn tail and run now. All his life, he'd run and hid. The one time he'd stood up for himself, it had only been enough to get his brother out of the line of fire, and who the hell knew if Al had even survived the fall out that window.

Well, the chances of surviving a fall was much higher than surviving the killing curse.

James was done running. He was a quivering, shuddering wreck because of Rose. She'd framed him – basically served him to Azkaban on a silver platter, and that had nearly broken his mind. He'd been violated, victimised, abused . . . but he was done with all of that.

He refused to let her win.

James turned around and headed for the sound of the screams, keeping as silent as possible. His eyes scanned the corridor for some weapon, until they at last fell upon an urn. There was a soot-blackened portrait hanging behind it of a stern man with his long, platinum blond hair styled into a ponytail.

Oh well, thought James, picking up the urn and noting that it was full. The man was dead. It wasn't like he'd be needing these. In fact, it almost seemed fitting, since, because of Rose, the Malfoy name was extinct.

He only realised what he was going to do when he was standing an inch or two away from a cackling Rose. He hefted the urn and nearly took her head off with the first blow. The force was such that the lid popped off, ashes clouding the air, but he didn't care.

"This is for sending me to Azkaban, you cunt," he said, slamming the urn down a second time, ignoring the fact that she was already lying prone across a writhing Hugo. He didn't care. This was payback.

He didn't even care that he was beating his cousin to death with some dead Malfoy's ashes.

"This is for Uncle George."

He slammed it down.

"This is for Scorpius."

He slammed it down.

James kept at it for a while, lost in a haze of blood and splattered brains, until at last he felt a woman's hands on his shoulders. Swallowing, he allowed the urn to taken from his grasp by an Auror, and the first thing he noticed was the red ruin he'd made of Rose's head.

Well, what was left of it at any rate.

Hugo was still screaming, still thrashing on the ground. Rose was dead, her blood and brains on his hands, and he was suddenly acutely aware that the room was filled with Aurors. There were ashes on his face, in his nose, in his hair . . . his blood was seeping out through his makeshift bandage. His head throbbed, his chest was covered in a barrage of blue and purple.

His mother was the one holding him. He could hear the Auror's talking. They were talking about him.

"Had to call Ginny up in the end," said one.

"Don't know what came over the boy," said another, "Wouldn't stop beating her even after her head was gone."

"Couldn't stun him. Who knew how much damage that could cause given his history."

James did the only thing he could. He slumped into his mother's embrace, tears streaming from his eyes, and promptly lost consciousness.


	11. Epilogue

**The Things We Do For Love**

 _ **Epilogue**_

 _Seven Years Later_

He found the flight home refreshing.

Sitting back in somewhat comfortable seat, his head leaned against the window, watching the British Isles slowly come into view on the horizon. Five years were a long time to have not visited, but he knew that his family understood. He needed to heal and to do that he needed a fresh start.

Teaching at the Salem Academy of Magic in America had been that fresh start for him – far away from home, in a country where his name and disorder wasn't widely known. It'd been a cathartic few years, but now he was ready to go home.

The fact that Neville had owled him to offer him a post at Hogwarts probably did have something to do with it.

"So, this is where you grew up?" she asked, her head resting on his shoulder. A tired yawn escaped her lips and he chuckled, looking down to where their fingers were loosely linked.

"A bit further inland, actually," he said, grinning. "Welcome to Britain, Esme."

The rest of the trip flew by the two of them, until at last they'd landed and collected their luggage. Looking at the clock and feeling the first symptoms of jet-lag, he sighed. Whilst magic could have gotten them there faster, he enjoyed travelling in Muggle ways.

It was very calming to just sit and enjoy the scenery.

Their suitcases were light as feathers, even considering that they held in them everything they'd owned in America. Magic was good that way, and he easily hefted both bags into the air and guided his girlfriend through the busy airport.

It was all of ten minutes later when they arrived at Grimmauld, leaving the suffocating blackness of Apparition behind them as they appeared on the front porch. James hesitated, for just a moment, before he knocked three times and waited.

"Uncle James!"

He looked up, his face breaking out into a broad grin at the site of his nephew and niece sticking their heads out the first floor window. Waving back, he saw them disappear, only for the sounds of little feet crashing down the stairs and shouts for their parents.

"I missed those two," said Esme, "It's been ages since your brother last visited."

"I think that goes both ways – it's been years since we visited."

"Touché, Potter," she said with a laugh, and the two of them stood, waiting for the front door of his childhood home to open.

 **.o0o.**

"I want Uncle Louis on my team!" yelled Bartido George Weasley, "You had him last time!" The boy held up a football, keeping it away from his other cousins by taking advantage of their height difference. Sticking out a lip, he said, "I'm not going to play unless we get Uncle Louis this time."

"No, _you_ had Uncle Louis last time," said Parvati Thomas, named for her late grandmother, and folded her arms.

"It's our turn," echoed her twin, Atish Thomas, rolling his eyes.

Louis laughed at the scene as he stood on the back veranda, a glass of scotch in his hands. The ice-cubes clinked as he watched the children with Rohan and Lysander at his side, the three of them enjoying the relative peace of a weekend.

"Are they always fighting over you?" asked a familiar voice, and Louis jumped. Turning his head, his eyes widened and he pulled the other man into a hug without thinking. Then, he smacked his cousin on the back of the head.

"James, you tosser, why didn't you tell us you were coming?"

"Surprise?" said James, shrugging, but Louis noticed his cheerful grin did not fade. "How're you doing, Louis?"

"As you can tell, I'm waiting for one them to tire themselves out arguing so they can't plead and beg when I tell them I'm not playing. I really don't have the energy for another game today, and my leg is killing me."

"Oh, that'd just break their hearts," said Lysander with a smirk. "How many of their uncles have a leg made off solid silver?"

"Is that why they all want you?" asked James, chuckling. "Because you can kick the ball the hardest?"

"They also like me the best," replied Louis, tapping his leg and letting the metallic clang echo around the yard. "I'm the cool uncle."

"Of course you are," said James, patting his cousin on the shoulder and turning to watch the children. Just then, Esme appeared in the kitchen window, her soft laughter washing over them all. Turning back, James watched as she and Cassiopeia settled down in chairs and worked on a salad of some sort, chatting about Merlin knew what.

"Oh my," said Rohan, raising an eyebrow. "Someone forgot to mention they've finally found someone."

"Is that what's kept you in America so long, Jamie-boy?" asked Lysander. "Where you looking for Neverland with Tiger-Lily over there?"

James flushed, and the other men chuckled.

 **.o0o.**

"Should I be worried that my brother decides to come home without even letting me know he's coming?" asked Lily, wheeling her way into the living room. Her hair was pulled into a high-ponytail, her legs shrouded in a long skirt to hide the atrophy. She smiled, leaning forwards and he knelt to embrace her.

"For the seventh time today, it was meant to be a surprise to show up for mother's birthday," he said. "And another one to announce I'm staying."

"Permanently?"

"Of course," he said, taking a seat on the couch and waiting for her to wheel herself into a comfortable position. He'd have helped, but he knew his sister – it would be an insult, in her mind, for him to push her wheelchair around.

"Good, because I really missed you, git," she said, "You didn't even stay the night after my championship game."

"It was the middle of the American school term, Lily," he explained, for what seemed like the thousandth time. "I had classes to teach in the morning."

"I know, I know," she replied. "But I'm playing a charity benefit this weekend, and if you're not there for the entire victory celebration I will end you."

"I'll be there," he promised, considering his sister. It was rare for a disabled person to play Quidditch in their world, but Lily had never stopped in her dreams, even when Rose had stabbed her in the spine. Now, she was a hero in her own right, the first person to introduce a Paralympic version of Quidditch, and even James admitted that it was a sight to see.

That didn't really stop his sister, to be honest, from keeping her position on the Harpies. Chasers didn't really need their legs, so once she'd gotten onto her modified broom, she was just as good as she'd ever been.

It really was an inspiration story – he was surprised Louis hadn't yet written about it for the Daily Prophet.

"I don't see the point," said Albus good-naturedly, walking into the room. "We already know she's going to win." He smiled, throwing his dark eye-patch into sharp contrast against his otherwise unblemished face, but James knew what lay beneath. At the least, Albus always had a standard costume for Halloween.

"Very true, Al, but there will be snacks," said Lily, a grin in place.

(As the three of them caught up, the portrait above the fireplace smiled, a twinkle in his green eyes as he ran his hand through his hair, revealing a single, lightning-shaped scar.)

 **.o0o.**

"So, when's James going to put a ring on it?" Cassiopeia asked, prodding at the two roast chickens in the oven with a fork to check if they were ready. "Before or after I get a nephew or niece?"

She chuckled as Esme nearly dropped the fork she was holding, and as she rose to her feet she watched her brother-in-law's girlfriend surveying her through wary eyes. It was rather odd to see the two of them together, honestly, for the differences were striking. Where Cass was fair, Esme was dark, and it was amusing. Both of them were Pureblood witches, but where she'd descended from the kings and queens of wizarding France, Esme had the blood of the Cherokee elders running through her veins.

It was funny how the world brought two such different people together.

"How'd you –"

"Esme, I've given birth twice and am currently expecting a third. Believe me when I say I can tell when a woman is pregnant," Cass said with a laugh. "Does he know?"

"I was waiting to be at three months before telling him," she said. "Make sure that I'm out of that high risk window."

Cass nodded, disapproving, but knowing it wasn't her place to push. On one hand, she understood – James had dealt with more disappointment and heartbreak in his life than any man she knew, and so for his girlfriend to be willing to hold off the announcement to be sure the child was safe was understandable. On the other hand, the woman in her who'd loved having Albus there during the early stages of each pregnancy wanted to reach out and smack some sense into the other woman.

Still, it wasn't her business.

"I take it you're moving here permanently now?" she asked, casually changing the subject.

 **.o0o.**

Hugo left his office early that day, pausing at the door to pay his respects to the two portraits he'd had installed on either side of the frame. One, his mother, and the other, Francesca, both captured in the Muggle style.

"I've been waiting for you," said Claire, leaning against his vacant receptionist's desk.

"Can't have been waiting long," he said, before pulling her in for a quick peck on the lips. "There was nobody out here when I went out to get some coffee from the break room."

"Ten minutes is a long time, love," she said, linking her arm with his and heading for the lifts.

The Auror department was operating on a skeleton staff as it did on most Sundays, so he didn't pass anyone of note as he left. He didn't mind – today, for some reason, he wasn't feeling overtly sociable.

"You never told me why you left the Guardian Core," said Claire as they entered the lifts and hit the button that would take them to atrium.

Hugo looked at her, a soft smile on his face. She'd still been in Hogwarts during his sister's reign of terror, and she didn't know the terror and pain that he'd gone through. That so many had lived through – to this day, he woke up stiff, often feeling phantom pains in his limbs courtesy of that blasted Cruciatus bullet.

He liked her well enough, even as he understood that she'd never know exactly why he'd settled into the role of Head Auror following his recuperation. For him, it was the best decision of his life.

"Let's just say that I love working in law enforcement and bringing in the bad guys," he said, as the elevators dinged and slid open. "But I love being able to spend time with my family more."

 **Author's Note:**

 **So, this is the end of The Things We Do For Love. I hope you all enjoyed it, and special cookies to everyone who guessed the killer before the reveal.**

 **Thank you for all the love and reviews I've gotten throughout this piece, and I hope you all are having an excellent day.**

 **-Ciao Mates**

 **Shane**


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